Content Curation World

UsefulScience is a curated collection of useful science info summaries delivered in 5-second bytes.

UScience contains one paragraph long citations or excerpts from research papers, magazine articles or other relevant scientific sources to which it links directly to. 

Useful information  bytes are organized into 12 different categories ranging from creativity to sleep, with fitness, health, education, persuasion and productivity in between.

A great example of content curation at work, it shows in an immediately tangible way, how the time consuming work of gathering, vetting and presenting information in a simple and digestible format can give life to highly valuable information / educational resources.

Well organized, legible, easy to navigate and full of useful gems this is certainly a great inspirational model for how to best use a content curation approach to create high value from existing content and resources.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://usefulscience.org/ 

More info: http://usefulscience.org/about 

Added to Great Examples of Content Curation at Work Pinterest collection.

A curated selection of the best search engines organized according to what you need to find.

Useful. Great example of how to create a useful, curated information resource. 

Free to use.

Full resource: http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html 

Fest300 is a great example of content curation at work. The site is a gateway to the most interesting festivals around the world, organized into several categories, from art and performance events, to music, health, food and religious celebrations.

For each selected festival a dedicated info-page curated by founder Chip Conley provides detailed info about the event, the location, accomodation and driving info, key takeaways, photos, video clips, ratings and things to pay attention to. Social comments provide also additional valuable info.

An excellent resource for world travellers, and a fantastic curation example to inspire web publishers and passionate entrepreneurs alike.

Free to use. 

Check it out now: http://www.fest300.com/worlds-best-festivals 

If you are looking for some oustanding examples of curation at work here's one that should not be missed.

A collection of collections, the Typologist is a unique site curated by Diana Zlatanovski, Museologist at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston  and Photographer at The Typology, and showcasing interesting objects and photo typologies that she has found around the world.

Check also her print shop at: the-typology.myshopify.com/

Follow Diana here:

• twitter.com/thetypology
• facebook.com/thetypology

Recommended.

An excellent showcase of best practices in curating content in education while using different tools and services.

Sue Waters pulls together a great number of very good examples, of how curated content can be effectively used in education.

The analysis includes relevant statistical data on the use of content curation tools, and several chapters providing examples of how different types of content curation tools have been effectively utilized within an educational context.

Tools covered: Storify, Slideshare, Scoop.it, Pinterest, Tweetdeck, Flipboard, Popplet, Mindmeister.

Content types covered: Blog posts, Visual notes, Infographics. 

Resourceful. 8/10

Full report: http://theedublogger.com/2014/06/12/curation/ 

Reading time: 6'

Videry is a great example of video curation at work.

Videry is a hand-curated collection of over 30 great video clips for web designers.

The beauty and value of this collection, in the context of curation is in the following:

• The quality of the clips selected
  
  
• A clean, and simple layout - content over looks
  The essence is in the selection made and that's why it needs to stand out.
  
  
• The essential info is upfront - video thumbnails + title + description
  no other distractions.
  
  
• A Pinterest-like simmetrical visual layout that allows easy scanning of the page

Where it could do better:

• Titles: no personalization for context - titles in the collection are exactly as the originals - the curator here could have improved and contextuaized titles for this collection, while keeping a good reference, visible to everyone, of the original one.
  
  
• Descriptions: these are the original video descriptions. No additions, no opinion, no contextualization. The curator could have written his own descriptions from these in the context of this collection, while leaving the original descriptions as an extra option (since they are all already accessible under the original video location).
  
  
• No visibile authorship for the collection.

P.S.: I think this clean design used in this collection is so effective that I wish there was a service prividing the ability to create curated video collections with such information design elegance.

(Anyone know who is behind Videry.me?)

Free to see.

Check it out now: http://www.videry.me/index.php

Facebook stream: https://www.facebook.com/videry.me 

Google+ stream: https://plus.google.com/106097967197719138860/posts