why curation is important

Knowing where to go and what to do is the currency that, in the modern aspiration economy, makes curators more important than influencers. They guide their audience through culture by putting forward a selection of images, references, codes, product releases, or memes. Curation gives even mundane objects value by connecting them with a point of vie... See more

Arthur de Villemandy, co-founder of Capsule, during which I inquired about the tricks employed by his curators. He responded with remarkable clarity, stating, "Curation isn't about accumulating; it's about the art of non-choice. What truly matters is the overall coherence of the selections." This shift from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) to NOMO (Neces... See more

Relying on creatives or niche experts (e.g., wine or book editors) is not a novel concept, though I do think we’re leaning on them more heavily as an antidote to algorithmic recommendations, and I know they’re working harder to produce differentiated suggestions.

Building relationships between things is a form of authorship too.

While social platforms are proving effective at pressure testing and gauging the customer response for new ideas, sometimes the general public isn’t the best curator for what’s next. It’s not just about the critical mass (how many people like something), it’s also about the credible mass ( who likes something). As algorithms mature, I suspect socia... See more

The long tail is a business model and a way of bringing work to the world. More is better.

Curation, on the other hand, offers a different reward for the publisher/creator.

Either your motto is, “we don’t sell anything, we sell everything” or “we put our name on this one.”

Lately, there’s pressure to be somewhere in the middle. To be sort of proud of... See more

There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record.

what I’m really mourning here is the death of independent media: opinions that aren’t created as clickbait, hot takes that aren’t manufactured for views, and recommendations that aren’t paid for—ultimately I’m looking for people I can trust.

When I say “I don’t know where everyone went,” I know everyone’s out there surfing the web , of course, but it feels like it’s a different place now. When the algorithms are determining everything we should be seeing, it’s a much less personal internet. The “For You” pages of the world are right, I am interested in that content, but I’m not seeing ... See more