If you don't know "curatorial", you don't have to do the news.

"Curatorial" English is "curation", is a letter of foreign words, has been used in the field of art exhibition for many years, the basic meaning of this word is: to conceive, plan, organize art exhibition activities, the person who is the curator is "curator" (curator).

Content curatorial in the digital age

The "curatorial" of the digital age was first applied to social media. Elad Gil, a Erad Gille director of Twitter's corporate strategy, wrote in 2012 that photo-sharing social networking sites Pinterest a new trend in social networking. In simple terms, each Pinterest user can be based on their own interests to form a "board" (layout), the user is these "board" curators, using active search, passive referral, such as the way to update these pictures.

If Pinterest is still in the single field of photo curatorial, at best, it is just a "picture editor" in the news industry. Then the appearance of Storify let a lot of news people panic, Storify search engine, social media together, binding account, users through the search box directly search keywords, and then drag search results into the edit box, can also add their own comments. It is released directly after editing and can be synchronized to Twitter or Facebook.

This is a new mode of journalism. And with the help of social curatorial tools, the role of many netizens can easily evolve from "everyone is a journalist" to "everyone is an editor." Wei, a technology critic, has put forward the concept of "the Finishing Man":

Know that there are a variety of favorites, are the user's own collection of various problems and answers. Clicking on these favorites is good text. These collectors are sometimes more attentive than the respondents, carefully chosen according to the standards they set themselves. I call them: the finishing.

The "Finishing man" here is actually the curator. When more and more news curators push the content of their own editors to the readers, the editing and finishing power of traditional media is facing great challenge. Many news media people despise the "collation", in the so-called professional news people, these articles or topics of the professional and authoritative is not comparable with the traditional news articles.

But that is not the case.

The value of digital content curatorial

First, content curators in the digital age are often based on social platforms, starting from interest, using digital tools to search and integrate ideas and ideas from all sides, and to unify them on a platform, such as Storify's "story" and "Favorite Favorites". Curators openly display their content in social media, as well as social behavior. If the curator is a celebrity, its reputation is the content of the guarantee, such as Lee Kai-fu, Xiaoping such a big guy will not (GAN) share the content of discord. And those grassroots curators, as long as they are not marketing numbers, their social network records also in a way to the content of their own endorsement. Even as the curators ' quirks lead to biased views or positions, it is also a traditional practice in journalism. Therefore, it is somewhat arbitrary to question the authority simply because of the individual identity of the curator.

Secondly, from the depth of the content, many of the content curators are practitioners of some industry, even if not the industry Daniel, is committed to become a young man Daniel. They are rooted in each subdivision of the field, through a relatively professional perspective of the search, analysis, integration of content, the depth of its content is no worse than professional journalists, not to mention the current media in the depth of the reporter's ability seriously inadequate. These curators are a powerful complement to in-depth reporting.

In fact, the digital challenge of traditional media, especially Chinese traditional media, is "not old enough" according to Wu Bofan, a senior media person. In other words, because of their lack of professional ability-from the topic, writing, editing and so on are not good enough to feel more and more from the so-called new media impact.

Third, content curatorial is the trend of the development of Internet content Platform: from UGC (user generated content) to UOC (User content). The lack of content in the early years of the Internet, the need for users to contribute content, and into the current rich period, the content of the reorganization and redistribution is extremely important. Curators, though not directly generating content, give new attributes from time, such as the old content to be combed, and the space (the rebuilding of the communication channel).

Traditional media should wake up.

So, in the digital age of the content of the exhibition, the traditional media have what is worth referring to the way?

First, embrace the Internet, learn the use of tools. Traditional media in the early years, similar to the "curatorial" content production model, such as a variety of abstracts, but in the Internet era, the content source of more and richer. In addition to portal sites, forums, more and more social media, vertical community has become high-quality content production and distribution center. This is a huge opportunity for traditional media reporters, but again, how to search the vast ocean of Internet information to find the news source you want is a challenge, at least, learn to use Google Bar.

Second, in the content curatorial, let the most suitable person voice. "Professional" or "unprofessional" is always a pseudo proposition. Can you imagine a real estate micro-broad v in the field of technology and environmental protection how much professional insight? Therefore, to allow the right person to speak on the right topic, to ensure the authority of the content. It is gratifying to note that in the past few years, many of the content curators in the vertical field have become "experts" in some subdivision areas. Then, finding the best content curators in an industry can capture the most valuable information in the industry.

Now, some of the domestic science and technology news sites directly with a few celebrity microblogging content to produce news, this is certainly a content of the fast way. Unfortunately, the in-depth coverage driven by the content policy has not yet been seen, imagine if only a few micro-blogs can write a news report, then the robot is not cheaper than people? If so, the news robot is no longer just the Associated Press a media "patent", the next article I will talk about: News robot how to replace reporters?