It has come to my attention that there are several people considering the idea of curation as a sound business model. Again, some crafty marketing and another “bogus” Clickbank product is trying to push the idea of taking other people’s content, mashing it up, and then putting it up on your own page.

It is just that easy to create content right? Well...NO. That is why I am writing this post, to help you understand what curation is, why it can kill your campaigns in their tracks, and perhaps some instances where curation can be of benefit to a company, business, or Internet entrepreneur.

What is curation?

Before I explain why you should not “curate” content, I want to explain (for those that do not know) exactly what curation is.

Curation is a mash-up of content. This could be content in all forms (video, text, images, documents) and it could be from an unlimited number of sources. It is similar to a pinboard on Pinterest in that you are taking a bunch of content that is not yours and trying to beautify it.

As the “curator: you are utilizing content from several different sources and creating a unified page or post that hosts the collaboration of data.

Although this may be a fun activity and the actual content may be helpful to the visitor, it is not helpful to YOU as a business operation. Essentially as a website owner. If you want to become a curator you are doing very little content creation, meaning you are no longer creating unique content. You are copying content!

THIS GOES AGAINST EVERY FREAKIN’ PRINCIPLE OF GOOGLE’S RANKINGS!

Duplicate content has gotten people ousted from Google for years. Google is seeking original content, content that is 90% (at least) original. If you are delivering a page that is a mash-up of “other” people’s content, guess what?

Google is not going to sway on this. The whole reason that Google launches Panda and Penguin attacks on their search rankings is to prevent stuff like this from being ranked. Sure some curated content will slip through, but ultimately becoming a “curator” of content that you do not own is a flawed business model from the start.

If you are trying to create something that will earn you money online (and do not have extensive resources), you should be running as far away as you can from the idea of curation.

When is curation good?

Curation can be good, just not for people trying to start a business online.

It it’s natural form and from the “digital curation” definition:

“Digital curation is generally referred to the process of establishing and developing long term repositories of digital assets for current and future reference[2] by researchers, scientists, historians, and scholars.”

Collaboration between different entities, including those of likes of scientists and historians can prove content curation as a very powerful tool. Imagine being able to have a website dedicated to all of the resources on a certain type of “plant research”. This is a curation that would prove to be beneficial for “research” purposes...but not financial services (although it could lead to institutional savings).

Curation of your own content within YOUR domain can also be good. Say you have a huge website with a lot of content, if you can take this content and present it in a better way that is easier to understand for the reader, then content curation can be a good thing.

And finally I will provide you with a curation application that I use every day. It is an online magazine that curates content from many web entities online to present you with an up to date mash-up of what is going on across many different topics online (you choose what your magazine looks like).

It is called Zite. They have had $20 million in their second round of funding and have not made a penny yet. If you want to make a run at creating a curation product, this is the sort of funding and competition you are up against.

Influence and Your Content

It is OK to get influence from other sources when creating your content. We all do it. You read an article which gives you an idea on something to write about, or you read a comment within a thread that gives you an idea for a lander.

Some of us even research data points and ideas from other sources and quote them within our content. There is nothing wrong with this. You are using influence from other content sources to make your content better.

Content should be unique (at least to the 90th percentile) and you should focus on creating your own engaging content, using your own ideas. Nothing has changed, nothing is different.

Too good to be true...

This is another instance of “if it is too good to be true” it probably is. This is no different than any other idea that has come along over the years, if you were able to simply click a few buttons, copy a bit of content, and add it to your site, everyone would be a HUGE success online.

If you ever have any questions about methodologies like this, please stop by WA and ask a few questions. We will do our best to point you in the right direction. Our ongoing goal is to make sure you have the right information that will benefit YOU as a business!