The Rise of Content Curators

Steven Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net, recently published the the article Why Curation is Just as Important as Creation on Mashable where is stiches together an argument for why curators will become internet power-brokers.  Of particular note is his Seth Godin excerpt:

“We don’t have an information shortage; we have an attention shortage,” Godin said. “There’s always someone who’s going to supply you with information that you’re going to curate. The Guggenheim doesn’t have a shortage of art. They don’t pay you to hang paintings for a show — in fact you have to pay for the insurance. Why? Because the Guggenheim is doing a service to the person who’s in the museum and the artist who’s being displayed.”

As Godin sees it, power is shifting from content makers to content curators: “If we live in a world where information drives what we do, the information we get becomes the most important thing. The person who chooses that information has power.”

Leaders on topiat are democratically appointed curators.  To become a leader on topiat, you have to curate collections of content that other people like after you.  A leader becomes increasingly powerful the larger their audience and the more frequently they add likable new content before other people in their audience.