I started blogging here in March 2009, and I spent the first several weeks in “beta”, writing and posting but not publicly promoting. One of the first ‘official’ posts grew out of a Friday-night exchange on Twitter that made me think of that initial post, “Curation nation”.
Other folks have worked this meme pretty well: a book, “Curation Nation: How To Win In A World Where Consumers Are Creators“, is coming out soon. I particularly liked the cover art for the book: “why the future of content is context“.
There are curation websites (I like an Etsy site that focuses on crafts), and media-convergence experts like Bob Garfield keep returning to the theme in an era of disruption. Curation is the new black, although not everyone likes the way the term is applied.
In that spirit, I was encouraged and intrigued by recent coverage of WordPress and content curation, particularly as presented on the Nieman Foundation’s always-interesting blog. WordPress, which currently hosts over 15 million blogs, is implementing a vertical strategy to focus content around communities.
Although the initial discussion centers around the consolidation of content to help gain ad revenue, it’s easy to see how the WordPress strategy could evolve into subscription models and premium services, including dissemination and sale of book and magazine content.
Again, we see a technology company building its content credentials. The future of publishing is not just digital, but it does seem to start there.
