by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: July 30, 2010

There is now so much content on the web that it takes search engines, aggregators and other forms of indexing before the average user can stand a chance of having a regular, reliable way to get whatever it is that interests them or that meets their needs on a daily basis.

Search engines go out and find content, using algorithms and tags, keywords or other factors to create indexes that bring up all of the related sites for a particular topic.

Aggregators find, organize and present links by topic or area of interest.

Alerts provide links to the newest versions of information based on a customized list of topics that are selected by the user.

Content curators involve human editors who decide which content is highlighted in the form of "editors" picks or summary page highlights. Content curators are used when content is simply too large to tolerate or when the work of content creators falls through the cracks of the aggregators and the search engines.

Content curation simply means that a human being, not an algorithym, is involved with screening and indexing content for selected audiences, or that the content viewer can use software to screen and choose content by creating their own filters. This becomes important when publishers want to publicize content that would not be at the top of the search engine results, but will be seen by more people when the editor of a popular online magazine gives it prominent placement on their home page.

When it comes to news, it can be impossible to find stories that truly provide whatever it is that we "need to know". Human editors can be involved in content curating that brings together news content that covers the more important issues in the news and not just the pop culture and lifestyle articles that are at the top of the search engine trends.

For Twitter, for example, mobile content curators come in the form of  the Quentin Finch app for Android and Twittelator Pad app for the I-Pad. These allow Twitter users to select their topics and to bring up tweets that relate to their areas of interest.

Google, according to aMashable Tech article by Vadim Lavrusikof Mashable.com, has been working on various content curating schemes for a while, with one project that allowed a partnership of top news industry editors to select front page content that goes beyond what is most popular, but to what is most necessary, too.

In summary, content curating is the human form of search engine that helps to wrangle the overwhelming overload of internet content and to present it in forms that meet needs using decision making parameters that the automated search engines cannot reproduce.

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