Content Curation World

If you are a documentary enthusiast like me, you will find plenty of great videos, curated and organized into categories and lists by visiting DocumentaryAddict.

The site, which is completely free to use, offers organised free access to nearly 5000 free documentaries already available online and keeps itself alive by using contextual ads from Google on its content pages.

Aside form the Google ads, which are not very intrusive, the site is extremely well designed and offers multiple ways to find the type of documentary you may want to watch, through 26categories, several compilation of top titles and a full search function.

Users can also rate and comment on each documenrary page providing a useful space for learning and exchanging from other fellow watchers.

A great example of sustainable content curation at work. By simply organizing and making more accessible what is already available out there, great value can be created as well as a community of passionate followers.

Free to use.

Check it out now: http://documentaryaddict.com/

Added to Great Examples of Content Curation.

Unmark is a web app which allows you to easily bookmark any web page you deem relevant, and to assign to it a to-do labels, a description and the option to permanently archive it.

Unmark keeps track and displays all of your bookmarks in an elegant vertical timeline and can manage hashtags utilized in the note/description field allowing easy categorization.

Existing bookmarks can be easily imported from your favorite web browser, Pinboard, or Delicious. Supported browsers include Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer 11. 

An available bookmarklet makes bookmarking any web page only a click away and with the Unmark Chrome Extension installed you can search your links directly from Chrome’s Omnibox (the place you type in your searches or the URL you want to go to). Also, you can add all of your open tabs to Unmark with a single click. And, if you want to skip the labelling process altogether, you can right-click on a page and add it to Unmark without seeing a window (speedy speedy).

The basic version is free, open-source and immediately accessible by anyone after registration.

A "Pro" version, costing $12/year adds the capability to search through all of your bookmarks.

An elegant and easy to use tool to more effectively manage anyone with an intense bookmarking activity.

• Try it out now: https://unmark.it/ 
   
• FAQ: http://help.unmark.it/faq 
   
• Overview: http://help.unmark.it/ 
   
• Bookmarklet: http://help.unmark.it/bookmarklet
   
• Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unmark/cdhnljlbeehjgddokagghpfgahhlifch/related 

N.B.: Unmark has been created by Plain, the same guys who made the outstanding in-line editor for Wordpress: Barley.

Zimilate is a new content collection and organizing tool that allows you to create Pinterest-like boards containing files of any kind, documents, PDFs, newly created text notes as well as images and full web pages that can be easily captured with a dedicated bookmarklet/extension.

Content items can be tagged, manually ordered and collected into "spheres", which can be set to be "private" or public.

It's very easy to drag and drop items from one collection to another and to re-order items in any way you want.

Team collaborators can be invited to contribute content to any of your collections.

All contents collected in Zimilate are fully searchable.

Zimilate is a powerful content curation app, similar to Pinterest but with added functionalties (more content types supported and powerful web page capturing) and more flexibility (reordering of items in a collection) which make it a potentially valuable alternative. At the same time, since it is so new, it lacks Pinterest core feature that allows you to easily select any image from a web page and to pin it to a board. With Zimilate, for now you need to click and save the image and then import it.

Free to use.

Try it out now: https://www.zimilate.com/ 

Check this review: http://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/14/webware/zimilate-free-website-save-organize-web-content-notes-images.html 

Added to Content Curation Tools directory.

Thanks to Francesco Guglielmino for finding it.

Google Research is a little-known sidebar available inside Google Drive documents and presentations which allows you to do just-in-time Google searches and to easily curate relevant results, including images, videos, text excerpts, links with full automatic attribution references, into the document or presentation you are preparing.

The Google Research sidebar facility can be called at anytime up by simply going to the Tools menu and selecting "Research" or by selecting any word in your text and then typing Ctrl+Alt+Shft+I.

Once in view, the mini Google Research sidebar, is ready to search across not just the Google standard web results, including news, images, videos and Google Scholar databases, but is also able to instantly filter and sort for you relevant Quotes, Dictionary items, as well as stuff from your own Google Drive documents and tables.

To identify more rapidly relevant resources inside this search sidebar, Google offers the option to "preview" any result, by opening an additional sidebar showcasing a resized view of the web page in question).

Once identified a relevant resource you can either drag and drop it right into your open Google document / presentation (great for images which will also automatically credit)*, or "insert the resource as a link", or "cite" it (by being able to select between MLA; APA and Chicago citation formats).

I have found the Google Research Tool extremely useful, handy and simple to use. If you are researching, writing or curating any kind of article, presentation or report in Google Drive, I highly recommend you try it yourself and let me know what you think of it.

Free to use.

http://drive.google.com 

*I am not suggesting to freely re-use images of others simply because they are accessible via the Google Research Tool. Generally, It is not a good idea to re-use other people images without appropriate authorization from the author.

Wepware is a new web app which allows you to capture any web page or portion of it and organize it into Pinterest-like boards which can be easily published and shared on social media channels.

Unique strengths include the ability to capture dynamic information boxes (flight schedule, sport scores, etc.) that will continue to be updated even when they are inside your curated collections. In addition, such live dynamic info snippets can be easily pasted on any web page you want and kept there as a live reference.

My comment: Powerful dynamic capture feature allows the creation of unique dynamic dashboards that collect and organize information from various sources in real-time.

Available as a Chrome browser extension.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://www.wepware.com/ 

More info: http://www.wepware.com/web/landing 

Newspeg is Pinterest for the news. Interface, dialog boxes and most of the superficial stuff you interact with on NewsPeg is 99% identical to what you are used to on Pinterest, making it easy for anyone already familiar with the visual pinning giant to start pinning news in no time at all.

As expected, there is a standard browser bookmarklet, allowing you to capture news content on the fly. Like on Pinterest you can create as many thematic boards as you like and easily add stuff to them with a click of your mouse. All content you pin on NewsPeg can also be easily shared on Facebook and Twitter.

My comment: Supereasy to use and adopt, provides a news curation format that provides more view and less depth than other competitors, and which can have its advantages in many vertical niches. Definitely a good practicing and experimental ground for anyone needing to get his feet wet with news curation. 

P.S.: One small weakness I have run into with NewsPeg is that, news articles, often don't have much in terms of images or video, but NewsPeg, just like Pinterest, won't let you pin something that has no readily available visual content inside of it. I appreciate the value of visuals, but if I need to curate the news, is the tool that you should provide with some alternative solution for when I run into situations like these.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://www.newspeg.com/ 

Read more about it: http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2014/01/introducing-newspeg.html

Added to News Curation Tools section of Content Curation Tools Supermap

Though it started on January 8th, you are still very welcome to sign up for this online free course on content curation, organized by Sam Burrough and Martin Couzins that will last for the next two weeks.

Here the key topics covered:

• Why do we need curators?
• What is digital curation?
• What’s the difference between aggregation and curation?
• Do you know your audience?

• Passion for your topic
• Practical ways to manage and filter information flows
• Tools for curation

From the official course page: "This course would suit anyone who is looking to understand more about curation and wants help to get started. It’s aimed at people in marketing, internal or external communications, learning and development and anyone who wants to share their passion for a topic with the world."

Free for everyone.

Sign-up now: http://www.curatr3.com/portfolio-item/how-to-be-an-effective-digital-curator/ 

If you are curating content, whether for the purpose of personal learning, or for creating a useful public information resource, your very first objective should be how can you add value to the existing information that you are going to work on.

Harold Jarche, does a wonderful job of explaining in simple terms what's the difference between sharing on social media, reposting or making your bookmarks public, versus the actual vetting and selection of each individual content item in light of the context and objective for which it is being curated.

The cherry on the pie from the author is an invaluable synthesis and bringing together of related items from Ross Dawson, Maria Popova and me, that allows you to scan and see at a glance 14 different ways in which you can truly add value to whichever set of information bits you are dealing with.

A great reference for anyone looking to improve the quality and value of its own curated work.

Useful. Inspiring. 8/10

Full article: http://socialmediatoday.com/hjarche/1964106/ask-what-value-you-can-add 

Here is a great example of how the spontaneous content curation efforts by individual users of a marketplace can provide significant benefits both to the marketplace sellers as well to all buyers.

On ThemeForest, which is one of the largest and best catalogues of web site themes and designs, you can find an endless number of curated collections of templates, image sets, presentation decks and others resources (like video footage or soundtracks) for publishing quality content on the web. In fact, there are so many of them that the main problem for whoever goes to shop there, is the time needed to search and find what may best fit his needs.

But thanks to a community feature called "collections", any registered user can collect and organize individual themes found on ThemeForest into individual collections which can be shared with everyone publicly (or kept private).

Here some great examples: 

• Reviews & Rating Themes (36 items): http://themeforest.net/collections/2183870-reviews-rating-themes 
   
• Premium Tumblr Themes (131 items)
  http://themeforest.net/collections/2518623-premium-tumblr-themes 
   
• Prestashopt Templates (38 items):
  http://graphicriver.net/collections/2391279-prestashop-templates 
   
• Cinematic soundtracks (70 items):
  http://themeforest.net/collections/325927-cinematic-masterpieces 

The ensuing benefit for the users of the marketplace is the ability to find more rapidly valuable items within the ocean of options available.

As a consequence also whoever runs Themeforest benefits from more sales and less time spent by new buyers in finding what they are looking for.

But there's more.

Since ThemeForest is part of a larger network of design resources that includes video assets (VideoHive), graphic resources (Graphic River), design apps (CodeCanyon) and several others, the collections can and do often include assets coming from the other sites of the network facilitating serendpitous discovery for buyers of other useful products.

Finally, individual merchants selling on the Envato network can curate their own collections showcasing their best work according to specific uses and applications.

A great example of how curation can significantly help online sales in situations where there is a very large number of products or services on sale.

Check it out now: http://themeforest.net/collections 

PressForward is a free open-source, WordPress plugin for curating most any type of content within the standard WordPress publishing workflow.

PressForward is in fact a full-fledged RSS feed reader and aggregator which can capture content coming from any site while allowing full editing and curation abilities. It is an ideal tool for news curators wanting to have a news gathering and discovery tool integrated into their standard publishing and editing environment.

PressForward is designed to be used by multiple users, like in a distributed newsroom, where several individuals or even a small community suggest and submit and others edit, approve and post selected content.

To gather content PressForward offers a standard bookmarklet to capture any content you find on the web, and can also import OPML files to allow you to aggregate and filter all of your favorite RSS feeds. 

Last but not least, PressForward keeps close tabs on the sources you utilise, by automatically creating attribution links for any content you curate and allowing you to have your posts optionally auto-redirect to the original source. 

Free to use. 

• Download plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/pressforward/ 
   
• Tutorials: http://pressforward.org/the-pressforward-plugin/screencasts/ 
   
• FAQ: http://pressforward.org/documentation/faq/ 
   
• User Manual: https://github.com/PressForward/PressForward/wiki 
   
• Who is behind the project: https://github.com/PressForward/PressForward/wiki 
   
• Check also this excellent in depth review of PressFoward: http://opensource.com/life/15/4/how-to-use-pressforward 

A project of Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

N.B.: Of note the partnership initiative offered to any organisation interested in develop high-quality, collaboratively-sourced and edited publications, which offers up to $10,000 in funding and 

• A dedicated technical support channel;
• Workshop and training support for start-up personnel;
• Consultation for the first year of publication.  
• Deadline is April 30 2015. 
• More info here: http://pressforward.org/become-a-pressforward-partner/ 

If you are looking for a reliable, efficient and easy-to-use RSS feed reader, I do suggest that you give a look to FeedBunch, a free web-based solution that does everything you expect a good feed reader to do.

Feedbunch can easily import RSS feeds, OPML files (collections of RSS feeds), can group your favorite feeds into dedicated folders, and export all of your feed subscriptions for use in another feed reader.

For anyone in need to follow and monitor systematically a great number of sources, a RSS feed reader remains an indispensable tool. Feedbunch offers a no-friction entry to RSS feed reading and content discovery for anyone moving his first steps in this direction. 

Free to use. Requires registration.

Try it out now: https://www.feedbunch.com 

Find more alternative RSS readers here: https://content-discovery-tools.zeef.com/robin.good#block_3280_rss-news-readers 

Refreshbox offers a good opportunity for anyone wanting to warm up to content curation without needing to invest a truckload of time.

The new free service allows you to easily pick any webpage or resource you find online, and to add your personal title and description /commentary to it, while saving to a draft newsletter that will be sent out to your readers once a week.

Contrary to what is suggested on the "What's This" page on the Refreshbox site, I strongly recommend that you do not just pick but also introduce and contextualize the gems you find, that's the real-value you can provide, while Refreshbox takes care of providing free-of-charge:

1. a web page for your curated newsletter(s),

2. a searchable hub where others can find it and

3. an easy-to-use subscription and distribution service without asking you anything in return.

Refreshbox allows you to place up to 5 links in each newsletter edition, and to hook up to other services (e.g.Product Hunt) to pick up your likes and preferences automatically and add them to your curated newsletter draft.

Excellent tool to warm-up to content curation by picking and collecting great resources to distribute via email.

Try it out now: www.refreshbox.co 

Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/refreshbox-add-links/ilbegopaglacdlahboheibkofipgmgno/reviews 

Startupery is a new online resource which organizes and curates best-practices, strategy advice, tips and methods for business startups.

The present library currently comprises over 500 hundred resources organized under 372 topics by 12 selected "experts", which include, among others, Fred Wilson (Vevnture Capitalist), Eric Ries (The Lean Startup), Chris Dixon (Investor) and Brad Feld (Early Stage Investor / Entrepreneur). 

For each expert you will find a page outlining his profile and presenting, in a categorized fashion, a selected number of sources suggested by him.

"For years, and now more than ever, startup founders, investors and operators have been sharing advice on how to succeed in business. From personal blogs to up-and-coming publications, this advice has been scattered and often hard to find when you need it most. Startup{ery is a library for this advice, giving each resource and the important topics that they cover a home on the internet."

An excellent and well-organized resource hub for startups, Simple, easy to navigate and staffed by a highly reputable set of subject-matter-experts / curators.

A great example of the value that content curation can bring to just about any field, where there is lot of precious information scattered around and which can greatly benefit from competent and trusted "organizers". 

Free to use.

Startupery: http://startupery.com/ 

Added to Content Curation Examples board.

Blendspace is a web-based content curation tool, designed specifically for educators and teachers. Blendspace sits somewhere between Pinterest and Storify as its power and simplicity make it easy to search multiple sources, import content and visually display it and organize it into boards.

Its unique strength resides in:

1. Multiple layout pre-sets
2. Presentation-mode
3. Collections are embeddable
4. Easy drag/drop reorganization of boards
5. Team collaborators (upcoming feature)
6. Works across all computers and devices

Very easy and intuitive to use, makes the research and collection task intuitive, and organization, presentation and publishing very effective.

I really like how Blendspace works and the results it produces. If you are looking for visual tool to create collections of resources on a specific topic for your class or training program, I'd give Blendspace a try.

Try it out now: https://www.blendspace.com/ 

Added to Curation Tools for Education inside Content Curation Tools Supermap 

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 

If you are a blogger, news reporter or better yet a content curator, you are certainly familiar with having so many tabs open in your browser, with interesting stuff to check out later, that your computer slows down to a crawl. 

To avoid this common situation a new free Chrome browser extension comes to the rescue. It is called OneTab and it allows you to instantly memorize and save all of your open tabs into an orderly page in which they are listed, and re-openable at any time. 

In the OneTab page where your tabs are all saved, you can re-order them in any way you want, group them, export them to other systems or even share them as a public web page.

Extremely useful. 9/10

Try it out now: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall/reviews?hl=en 

More info: http://www.one-tab.com/ 

Help: http://www.one-tab.com/help 

Scissorsfly is a great new web app which allows you to "photograph" any screen or part of it and to collect and organize these pictures into Pinterest-like boards.

The capture functionality allows you to not just to pick images available on a web page as you would do with Pinterest but it allows you to clip any part of a web page or a full visible screen as you may see fit.

Differently than on Pinterest, the collected items can be easily arranged, positioned and resized on the board.

Scissorsfly provides a Chrome browser extension (Firefox and Safari coming soon) that once clicked provides a small toolbar with all of the key commands available.

Free to use.

Excellent capture and collect tool, provides lots of the original functionalities available in the now defunct Clipboard.com. Unfortunately there is no ability to capture a full web page, from top to bottom, but outside of this, I really found Scissorsfly to be an excellent tool for capturing and curating ay type of content available online.  

Try it out now: https://www.scissorsfly.com/ 

Chrome app store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scissorsfly/hjhmkhdbecgcmhohojlcjddicnbgahcp/details 

Archive.is is a free web service which allows you to capture, store and archive permanently any web page you submit. 

Archive.is permanently stores a double copy of your selected web site: one that is an image snapshot of the page, and another which contains the full text of it. Archive.is also provides a download link that contains a zipped copy of all the files making up your selected page, and which can be opened offline in any web browser. 

Archive.is can save most any type of web page including Facebook pages and it allows you to easily search and see all of the pages already saved for a certain domain.

There is no registration or login required and you don't need to install anything. 

A free dedicated bookmarklet makes it easy to capture and archive any web page you happen to be on.

If you are looking for a free, simple and easy to use service to archive any web page permanently, I recommend Archive.is.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://archive.is/ 

Useful info on blog page: http://blog.archive.is/   

Added to Permanent Web Page Archiving Tools section of the Content Curation Tools Directory

If you are interested in understanding what content curation is all about and where's its key value, you will find this reading material relevant to your learning goal.

In this reading collection (25 articles) you can learn how curation can be a fantastic instrument for learning, journalism and marketing, as it provides the means to create value, to find unique resources and to illustrate them, and in this process it showcases your competence and expertise on the matter (or the one of your company / organization). 

If you are just starting out with content curation, this learning playlist will provide you with all the basic info you need to know to better understand this new activity and its relevance in our times.

Learning playlist: https://gibbon.co/RobinGood/content-curation-guide 

Movieclips.com is a curated collection of the best movie clips and trailers from thousands of films tha can be re-used, edited, legally shared and embedded on any web site. 

It is possible to search or browse the huge film clips catalog via a rich number of pre-set categories ranging from actors, to directors, move title, and many more.  by a wide number of categories all of the films available 

If you are looking for a specific movie quote, Movieclips can be invaluable in finding that memorable scene that would do perfect to complement your research or communication project.

If you search for a specific theme or word (e.g.: freedom) you can get instantly a list of films that include clips that cite that theme and provides all of them for immediate access.

Any available video clip is available in most cases in both SD and HD video quality, and it is possible to "trim" it to keep only a specific segment to be republished. A simple visual editor allows you to drag clip markers to establish the start and end of the part you are interested in. 

Any clip, can be shared directly to all major social media channels or embedded in a customizable player on any web site or blog.

Moveclips also has curated a gallery of Mashups, a TOP10 of the best clips available.

From any film clip you can access a relevant link to Netflix, Amazon or iTunes to buy, rent, purchase or stream that movie.

Movieclips is available online since 2011 but it looks like it is not being updated anymore. 

No registration or login required.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://movieclips.com/ 

See what others have to said about Movieclips: http://movieclips.com/about/press/ 

More info: http://movieclips.com/about/team/

Docubase is a project of the MIT Open Documentary Lab that aims to create a collaborative, participatory community around a growing collection of innovative documentaries curated by experts and outsiders alike.

Documentaries can be searched and sorted easily in a number of ways (most recent, most viewed, alphabetical order / or as a list rather than a mosaic). The interface is slick, colorful and simple to use.

More than 140 documentaries are already available and a selected group of curators has put together a number of publicly available playlists designed aroound key themes connecting these clips. 

Playlists: http://docubase.upian.com/playlist/ 

The curators: http://docubase.upian.com/curator/ 

A fantastic resource for documentary lovers and a great example of how in an open and participatory project, curation can play a fundamental role.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://docubase.upian.com/ 

More info: http://docubase.upian.com/about/ 

Suggest projects to be included: http://docubase.upian.com/contact/ 

Read more about it: http://opendoclab.mit.edu/docubase_conversation 

#mitdocubase