![Why Curation Is Just as Important as Creation [OPINION]](https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/archives/05mUKJFOlcFeo97zrbyD9Rw/hero-image.fill.size_1248x702.v1647019706.jpg)
Scoble has declared curation as the next “billion dollar” opportunity and wonders aloud as to whether he should “create or curate” as tech news breaks in Silicon Valley. Scoble says a curator is “an information chemist. He or she mixes atoms together in a way to build an info-molecule. Then adds value to that molecule.”
“I used to drink from the real-time fire hose, because on the social web, everything was about real time,” says Brian Solis, author of Engage. “Then I realized over the years that it’s actually more about right time than real time. In fact, when information comes through, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the right time to engage, capture it, and share it. I’m more successful now creating a list of information, relevant information, and then repackaging, repurposing, and broadcasting that information at the right time.”
Getting people to pay attention to you -- by following, friending, linking, or otherwise engaging -- will have real economic value, says communications consultant and author Chris Brogan. “Attention is a currency, just like many others. We understand time and money as two interchangeable things. But attention is just as much something that needs to be arbitraged and disconnected from a 1:1 value. Said another way, ‘Attention costs me time and time is worth money, so attention by extension is worth money.’ ”
Conclusion
Data will be created with staggering speed, and systems will need to evolve to find, gather, and package data so that you can get what you need, when you need it, in coherent and useful bundles.
Curation taps the vast, agile, engaged human power of the web. It finds signal in the noise. And it's most certainly going to unleash a new army of web editors armed with emerging curation tools.
