Curation Revolution

Neil's Note
Let start off with a question: Why would you share the most popular content from high traffic content sites that most people are already reading and sharing?

Marty 's Note: Why I Stopped Curating From The Big Boys
Interesting conversation broke out on @Neil Ferree's excellent share on G+. I agree with Neil's point and have long since stopped sharing posts from Mashable et al. I've stopped curating off of "big blogs" for several reasons including:

* Find these sites stop being BLEEDING edge and became more mainstream. My tribe and I live on the razor's edge of what's next.
* I share stuff that is too middle of the road and my curation reputation takes a hit and I lose audience.
* Mostly the BIG BLOGS BORE ME now (see note below about Gwen Stefani).
* No way to add value to curation from BIG sites because a. they start from some reasonable and KNOWN place and b. they are going to get 500 comments and a million shares anyway.
* My friends aren't there anymore.

That last bullet is the most telling. I'm part of a nomadic tribe of Internet marketers. Look at http://mashable.com/ homepage today:

* Apple & U2.
* CC hacks at Home Despot.

* Gwen Stefani gives Jimmy Falon a lap dance...

BORING and CELEBRITY BORING. I don't have time to watch Jimmy Fallon (unless there is a laptop on my stomach lol) and could care less about the latest BIG whatever. That is NOT where my tribe lives.

Where My Tribe Lives - In the Desert
Imagine a long, broad desert. The sand whirls and wraps like water. It feels like you could walk for a generation before seeing anything other than what you are seeing right now. Suddenly there is an ornate tent. Inside the tent the strange is mixed with the surreal as monitors glow and keys click.

This is my tribe. Far from the celebrity obsessed too big and boring (to us) now for their own good BIG blogs we compare notes about a semantic future, community, content shock and the implications of wiki-ification and appification.

We have our own publications. We have our own tools to publish too. Tools such as Scoop.it, Haiku Deck and G+ are used in creative ways daily if only so we can smile and cheer each other on. We know and learn about what matters to us from people we've come to know, trust and love.

We don't read Mashable or HuffPost unless one of US is writing or being written about.

We LIVE, BREATHE and THINK about little else than what is glowing now in that tent in the desert where our tribe is busy clicking, thinking and changing the web and Internet marketing. These are the things we care about.

While Mashable discusses what Gwen Stefani did to Jimmy Falon we are thinking about semantic web, content marketing, curation and what Mark did to Phil (or other way around). Unless Gwen created a new startup, app or is publishing something cool and different we could care less what she did to Jimmy.

Oh & U2's new album sounds cool and we are sure we will hear it one night LATE when the desert winds blow and the only sound other than U2 is the sound of a million fingers clicking, writing, thinking, collaborating and doing.

The future is different. In the future we collaborate more and care less about the lap dance someone named Gwen gave someone named Jimmy...at least in that tent far off in the desert.