On Old-School Web Content Curation

Posted by: on Nov 17, 2009 | No Comments

There’s been a lot of talk over the past few months (and really, years) about how content curation is the next wave of social media. The reasoning goes that with the massive rise in new information channels spewing a flood of content at consumers, we’re teetering in the midst of an attention crash of sorts.

Better content filtering – feed searches and such – is one way to cope, paired with dedicated tools and even people whose job it is to curate all that information into useful collections for the rest of us. The tools – social bookmarkers like Delicious for example – help everyone who uses them become a vast web of curators in effect. Newer tools like Alltop in effect attempt to curate blogs around selected topics. And link sharing via Twitter and Facebook are exploding the concept even further, with more focus on realtime push and less on the archiving and organizing aspect found in social bookmarking.

I’d like to highlight an older kind of Web content curation, that I think often gets left out of this conversation: the link blog. It wraps the “filtered and trusted firehose” style of link sharing found on Twitter with a touch of commentary and editorial that ads real value and context to those links.

By way of example, take two very popular blogs: Boing Boing and Daring Fireball. Another great tool for this sort of thing by the way is Tumblr, but I won’t dive into it here.

Boing Boing, kind of the granddaddy of all link blogs, bills itself as “A directory of wonderful things.” Which it truly is – it’s a firehose of content in its own right, but of organized content sprinkled with light editorial provided by interesting authors, serving as something of a guided tour to all the quirky parts of the Web.

Daring Fireball, the link-ish blog of John Gruber, in contrast is mostly focused on the Apple community and in particular the Apple developer community. Lots of small links, with a sentence or few of editorial, interspersed with a longer article here and there.

Neither blog is designed to really “curate” content for long term categorization and reference in the way a social bookmarking tool does, yet they do spew out links in much the way you’ll find on Twitter. The value, and the difference, lies in the commentary attached to each link, commentary coming from sources whose judgement and authority many people trust.

It’s because of this short form editorial, from authoritative authors, that they are both among my first stops in the morning. I trust the Boing Boing crew and Mr. Gruber to find and share interesting, relevant links and I enjoy the bits of commentary they provide on each.

In the current era of mass link sharing via social networks, Boing Boing and DF can appear to almost be anachronisms. After all, blogs are soooo 2007, right? But their continued success and relevance I think points to a larger point: everyone has their own preferences for how they consume drips from that grand firehose of Web content, and no one tool or format is the “right” one.

Some people prefer to consume curated content in 140 characters or less (Twitter), some want it only from close trusted friends and in lower volume (Facebook), and some enjoy it with a bit more commentary fed out via RSS readers (link blogs). Which is why I see a future filled with a variety of Web content curation tools and styles, and tend to discount all the frantic stories that surface about how the rise of App X will kill Apps Y, Z, and everything else for that matter. In the case of Web content curation, we have a wide variety of tools and styles already co-existing, as people select what best suits their needs and taste.

Is the Dad Blogger’s Turn Coming in 2010?

Posted by: on Aug 28, 2009 | 5 Comments

Jessica Smith of JessicaKnows.com posed an interesting question last week:

Will 2010 be the year of the Daddy Blogger?

2009 has clearly been the year of the mommy blogger. Brands have recognized this through their engagement of these influential women.

Mainstream media has brought mom bloggers and their stories of buying power and word-of-mouth success stories into the folds of newspapers and on television screens across the country. We’ve also witnessed the notoriety lead to controversy, drama, and some may argue, scandal…if only just perceived.

However, I’ve been noticing a quiet trend. The stealth mode of the “Daddy Bloggers”.

Jessica’s argument centers on what she calls grit, reach, “Mars and Venus”, fresh voices, and ready to rock and roll. Go read her post for the full and very compelling argument.

My take? Yes, 2010 will see the dad bloggers attract significant attention from brands. Here’s why:

  • The model is proven: Mom blogs have been thoroughly embraced by brands ranging from auto manufacturers to consumer products to TV networks. Entire conferences and niche consulting practices have sprung up about connecting marketers to moms, with a significant focus on moms who are active in social media. It’s not a huge leap from moms to dads, especially the not-insignificant number of stay-at-home-dads, and dads who play an increasingly active role in management of the household, many of whom are active on blogs.
  • Dads may appeal to a distinct set of brands: Be it stereotyping or accurate market segmentation, many dad blog product reviews* tend to focus, unsurprisingly, on products traditionally associated with dads: gadgets, technical gear, sports, outdoors, etc. It’s not unreasonable to see many brands that haven’t found a suitable niche with mom blogs to latch on to dad blogs as their own way to ride some of the social media wave. (*My own casual observation)
  • Marketers flock to the appearance of trust and authenticity: Just as mom blogs gained traction as storytellers of remarkable honesty, emotion, and humor, dad blogs are doing the same. Trust and authenticity, married with relevance, creates loyal and often broad bases of followers. Marketers love this, as a product endorsement given by someone you feel an emotional connection vastly outweighs one given by a generic review site.
  • The potential is largely untapped: Some of the examples outlined below notwithstanding, relative to the mom blog community, dad blogs are an untapped market for brands. Some of the better known dad blogs are seeing commercial success and are flooded with product pitches, but you’re not seeing, yet, the proliferation of highly trafficked and pitched review sites written by accomplished dad blogs. As the Sony DigiDad campaign illustrates, there are lots of opportunities for creative engagement.
  • The mom blogs are reaching a saturation point: This may be a controversial point, but my spidey sense is telling me that the mom blog community, in the midst of a full-on goldrush, is approaching an attention saturation point. The established, unique bloggers with passionate followers will always be able to command attention from major brands. However the next tier down is seeing a massive amount of review sites go live, creating pressure to grab more readers and potentially diluting some of the original appeal of the mom blog community. Dad bloggers, still heavily loaded with storytelling blogs, may represent an attractive and available adjacent segment for marketers.

This argument isn’t entirely new, but the beginnings of this shift are finally starting to appear: The NY Times and AdAge both covered Sony’s recent effort to engage gadget-oriented dad blogs, driven in large part by Chris Brogan (who has his own Dad group blog at Dad-O-Matic). Commercial success is cropping up for dad bloggers such as the guys at DadLabs and the blogger-turned-book author Danny Evans at DadGoneMad. Even Wired is in the game, with the dad-blog-firehose known as GeekDad (your RSS reader has been warned).

There is also a group of smaller, but growing Dad group blogs and communities, such as Dad-Blogs.com (disclosure: I’ll be starting a guest column there shortly), CC Chapman’s Digital Dads, The Art of Manliness, Geek Dads @ Home, and the previously mentioned Dad-O-Matic, among many others.

Dad blogging may be the Internet’s tiniest niche; or at least it’s least lucrative. - Shawn Burns

That may be about to change.

Disclosures: In addition to the guest column I’m planning to write at Dad-Blogs, I’m also a newish author of my own storytelling blog about being a dad. So yes, I’m making this argument from someone in a position to benefit from my own predictions coming to pass. So caveat emptor. That said, I stand by comments, just run them through your own BS filter. I also make a number of assertions based on observation rather than published data. Again FWIW.