Content Curation World

Pluto.tv is a new web service which curates the best video clips available online by organizing content coming from YouTube and many other video sharing sites into thematic programs of 30 minutes each.

The interface is very similar to the one utilized by program guide viewers on standard cable TV.

Pluto.tv offers already more than 100 thematic video channels all curated by human beings.

My comment: An effective approach to surface great video content 

while delivering it in a familiar and consumable format.

 Available also as an app for iOS and Android.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://pluto.tv 

Huzzaz is a new free video curation web service which allows you to search, find, collect and publish video clip collections on whataver topic or theme you may be interested in.

An internal search engine makes it easy to search for clips across YouTube and Vimeo, and to add them selectively to one of your collections. A bookmarklet is also available to clip videos that you find while surfing.

Video collections can be easily shared on social media or embedded easily on WordPress, Tumblr or on any other web site. 

Free to use.

My comment: Promising alternative to the many options out there. Very easy to use both as a discovery tool as well as a video curation tool. Will need to see how it develops.

Get an invite here: http://huzzaz.com/beta

Review by SocialTimes: http://socialtimes.com/huzzaz-makes-it-easy-to-create-and-share-video-playlists_b136571

*Added to Video Curation Tools section of the Content Curation Tools Supermap

Automattic, the company behind WordPress has just released a tool which allows WordPress users to curate real-time news coming from Twitter and YouTube video clips without ever leaving the standard WP posting dashboard.

From TheNextWeb: "Akin to having Storify right in your WordPress platform, users can click on the “Add Media” button while they’re editing a post and see options to insert either a tweet or a YouTube video.

Being able to embed social content like this isn’t new — both Twitter and YouTube have made it possible for a long time, but WordPress is now streamlining it so that you can simply query based on keyword, hashtag, user, or geographic location, and it will populate the relevant content."

My comment: Sign of the times. Soon most publishing tool will integrate curation facilities that allow easy searching and integration of excerpts from articles, videos and other content types into original content. The WordPress Media Explorer confirms this trend while providing thousands of small independent publisher with ready-to-use simple curation facilities.

N.B.: At present the Media Explorer is available only for WordPress.com users, but it will be soon available as a Jetpack also for self-hosted WordPress sites.

Find out more: http://en.support.wordpress.com/media-explorer/ 

Here's a good real-world example of good content that could become one hundred times more useful and valuable for readers if it was just "curated" a bit more.

A company called ClickConsult has had in fact the great idea of culling together all of Matt Cutts' videos (the Google Spam team evangelist), in a one-page collector, while complementing all clips with a summarized text answer.

Great idea and cool execution: http://www.theshortcutts.com/

but...

It's impossible to find what you are looking for or to browse in some kind of intelligent way, because all of those 100 video clips are all mixed together. Yes you can search, sort by newest, but there are no groups based on common questions and topics (and there are a lot), no sets, no playlist on any of the hot topics covered.

This is why I thik this is a perfect example of a some good content where if you only add a simple layer of curation, by organizing and grouping related items, this same collection becomes instantly one order of magnitude more useful.

Original collection: http://www.theshortcutts.com/#

What do YOU think?

iLook.TV lets you curate custom TV channels distributable via smartphone compatible apps that act as pay-TV like subscription channels.

The channels are commercial and can include or accept advertising requests thus providing a monetization opportunity for channel curators.

iLook.TV is made up of two components:

1) iLook.TV website where you create your channels

2) iLook.TV ChannelApp for ditributing your custom channel
 

In a Channel you can add / syndicate video clips and submit TV commercials to the iLook.TV system.

The ChannelApp is instead a mobile app that can be fully utilized by Channel subscribers as Program Guide for your channel as well as a TV remote to watch specific video content on their connected large TV screens. The ChannelApp can be branded, configured and submitted to the Apple App Store.

ILOOKTV supports three methods of monetization: subscription, pay-per-view, and TV commercials.

Soecifically:

  • A Channel subscription must be purchased by a TV viewer to play videos that are marked premium.

  • Pay-per-view (PPV) videos are marked with “Buy” (forever) or “Rent” (for 24-hours) and require a payment from a TV viewer.

  • TV commercials are submitted to the ILOOKTV system by advertisers and are automatically played on Channels that request them.  Advertisers are automatically charged for each insertion via instant auctions.

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Revenues are collected by iLook.TV from subscriptions, PPV and commercials and are automatically shared with Channel owners.

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The cost to own a Channel is $100 per year. 

N.B.: Channel owners also need to pay the standard $100 Apple Developer fee when they submit the ChannelApp to the Apple App Store.

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Promising concept. Rough implementation.
A glimpse at what the future of video curated content may look like in the near future.

For more info: http://www.ilook.tv/ 

How it works: http://www.ilook.tv/how-it-works.html 

Siz.io is a free web app which allows you to collect your favorite video clips into thematic "shortlists".

Shortlists are organized into main categories ranging from News, to Animals, Games, Funny, Cinema, TV and more.

You can add video clips from YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, Instagram, Vines and more by simply copying and pasting their URLs.

My comment: Good resource to find shortlists of curious, funny and entertaining videos. Easy-to-use. Feature request: play all clips in a shortlist as a back-to-back sequence.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://siz.io/ 

Added to the section: Video Curation of the Content Curation Tools Supermap

OnePlaylist.fm is a new web app which allows you to search YouTube videos and the full Spotify catalog for music tracks and video clips and to collect your preferred ones into shareable playists.

You can also import existing playlists straight from YouTube and Spotify. Not only. Once you have created a playlist, you can synch it with your account on YouTube, Spotify, Rdio, Deezer and many other music services.

Newly created playlists can be set to private or public. Public playlists can be shared on social media, embedded on other web sites, and are always published to a dedicated playlist web page that integrates a video player, all the clips in the playlist, related playlists, and a public analytics chart showing views and Facebook shares for that specific playlist.

The service is powered by Spotify.

My comment: Excellent video and music playlist maker. Powerful and speedy search function makes it easy to find any video or track and to arrange it into a publishable playlist. Excellent solution to create/curate valuable, unique and immediately useful content for your audience.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://oneplaylist.fm/

Example of a published playist page: http://oneplaylist.fm/playlists/beach-house-chillout

Video demo: http://youtu.be/VA96RiIwfyc

*Added to Music Playlist Building Tools inside Content Curation Tools Supermap

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

CratePlayer is a web app which allows you to create compilations of video (and audio) clips coming from all your social media accounts as well as from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Soundcloud or from any other website (a standard bookmarklet allows to easily grab video and audio content you find on the web.)

While it is not possible to upload your own files, it is possible to apply a visual cover, a description and relevant tags to each collection, which can be set to "private" or "public" depending on your needs. Furthermore you can invite additional persons to contribute to curate a specific collection.

Final collections can be easily shared on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, via email, or can be embedded on any web site or blog.

Free to use.

More info: https://www.crateplayer.com

FAQ: https://www.crateplayer.com/about/faq

Examples: https://www.crateplayer.com/crates

Reelsurfer is a web app which allows you to find, discover and clip (in the sense of extracting from a larger item) videos into either a thematic reel, or into a collection of diverse stuff.

ReelSurfer provides a browser bookmarklet to make it easy for you to grab any interesting video clip you find online whether on YouTube, Vimeo or on one of the other tens of sites supported.

PandoDaily reports: "...create reels of multiple videos, either from within a single longer video or reflecting a theme across multiple videos. All ReelSurfer videos link back to the original content source allowing the viewer to watch full length video should they choose. Because ReelSurfer doesn’t host videos, but rather links through to source content, all videos on its platform retain their native advertising such as pre-rolls and mid-rolls."

From my viewpoint, and having seen quite a few of these tools, I have to say that ReelSurfer is the easiest to use. Add to this the fact that ReelSurfer doubles up as a video discovery tool and all of the responsibility for the kind of video that you can produce with it falls onto your shoulders. That is: ReelSurfer is great, but it's up to you to curate and pull together great stuff, that creates new meaning and value for your audience.

Free to use.

Find out more: http://www.reelsurfer.com/

More info: http://www.reelsurfer.com/about

Check these reviews: 

• paidContent - ReelSurfer targets media with newest take on video clipping (2013-04-12)
  
  
• PandoDaily - ReelSurfer beefs up its discovery and video clipping tools, finds surprising success among brands and publishers (2013-04-12)

Update from Giuseppe Mauriello: ReelSurfer is public for all users, but there also is a new program called "ReelSurfer for journalists". It is currently still in private beta. You can request an invite here: http://news.reelsurfer.com

YouTube has just made available a new way to present, organize and curate your own YouTube channel presence. The new feature set allows any YouTube channel owner to:

• Set up a "trailer" video to be shown to all thos epeople who are not yet your subscribers.
  
  
• Display his YouTube One Channel page across all kinds of devices and resolutions without a problem.
  
  
• Organize and present your clips and selected ones from others the way you want.

From the official site: "Take greater control over how you present your videos and playlists on your channel.

You can now curate content — your own or others’ — into highly visible sections for your fans to discover what to watch. With multiple layouts for videos and playlists, you can arrange your channel to best highlight your content.

Now, when your subscribers click on your channel from the guide, your full channel appears instead of just your activity feed. Your fans see exactly what you want them to when they click on your channel."

Examples: http://www.youtube.com/onechannel#see-how-its-done

Channel art guidelines: http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&topic=16630&answer=2972003

More info: http://www.youtube.com/onechannel

(Thanks to Ranvir Singh for his kind help in suggesting this)