You Can Be a Trusted Guide To The Most Relevant Information Online: Not Google

Robin Good’s insight:

Matt Rosoff writes on Business Insider UK:

A lot of people think Google Search is like a map: An objective guide to the best and most important material on the internet. It’s not.

Google Search is the most important product of a very wealthy and successful for-profit company. And Google will use this product to further its own commercial ends.” (Not to help people find the most relevant info to their own learning needs.)

This is an excellent article that should be read a couple of times slowly to remind oneself of Google key aspirations and limits.


In it, the author illustrates with relevant references how Google uses whatever means it has to further the interest and revenues generated by its search engine ad business (AdWords / AdSense).

 

It also highlights, that like any other dominant, monopoly-like company it risks of being challenged in courts around the world, and this is “what Google desperately wants to avoid. If a government body issues a formal legal ruling that Google Search is an anticompetitive monopoly that needs to be regulated, it opens the floodgates“.

Meanwhile Google Search is and will be increasingly challenged by smaller but more relevant, specialist search engines, like Amazon or Yelp.

But Google, hungry by its profit-driven goals, keeps also increasing the amount of information it provides itself inside search results, versus original content and resources that are out there on the web.


In four years time Google has doubled the amount screen real estate that it uses to promote its services or ads.


All of this to say, that Google is a for-profit company and not a humanitarian endeavour built and maintained to provide a true guide to the best information available online. 




For whoever has the interest, passion and skills to search, filter and organise information this is important news. 

There’s an opportunity to provide higher quality, better vetted information results than Google presently does. At least in some areas. 

If Google is too busy about serving ads and pushing its own services, there will have to be someone else who can provide to Google, or other search engines, trusted quality search results on specific subject matters. 


As for Google there is one area where it cannot really compete with talented humans: trust. 

True information curators, of the expert kind, may indeed become in great demand in the near future. And personal trust will determine which one you and I will rely on. Whether Google will exist or not.



Right to the point. Informative. 9/10


Full article: http://ift.tt/1N05iDd 

from MasterNewMedia Breaking New Media News http://ift.tt/19LHrJz

Track and Monitor Your Favorite News Sources with Feedbunch RSS Feed Reader

Robin Good’s insight:

If you are looking for a reliable, efficient and easy-to-use RSS feed reader, I do suggest that you give a look to FeedBunch, a free web-based solution that does everything you expect a good feed reader to do.

Feedbunch can easily import RSS feeds, OPML files (collections of RSS feeds), can group your favorite feeds into dedicated folders, and export all of your feed subscriptions for use in another feed reader.

For anyone in need to follow and monitor systematically a great number of sources, a RSS feed reader remains an indispensable tool. Feedbunch offers a no-friction entry to RSS feed reading and content discovery for anyone moving his first steps in this direction. 

Free to use. Requires registration.

Try it out now: http://ift.tt/19DN9Ni 

Find more alternative RSS readers here: http://ift.tt/1OofKWK 

from MasterNewMedia Breaking New Media News http://ift.tt/1OosjRM

Newsletter Curation: Top 6 Tools and Tips To Curate Your Own Weekly Newsletter

Robin Good’s insight:

Given the amount of news, stories, tools, events and services that are being announced on a daily basis it is very difficult for anyone to resist the time-saving benefits of subscribing to a newsletter that finds and collects the most relevant items in the specific topic area he is interested into.

If you are a subject-matter expert, a coach, trainer or consultant, you need to monitor and track your field of interest anyhow, and if you learn to put aside, organise and properly collect the good gems you find during your scouting time, you can provide a really useful service to your readers and followers.

Furthermore there is no lack of tools web services that can help you carry out this task without needing to learn new or difficult skills.

Here are my personal six tips of advice and my favorite top six tools you need to check out, if you ever decide to start curating your own weekly newsletter:

Tips

a. Limit the number of curated items. Less is more. Three is plenty. Five is a lot. 

b. Provide concise but useful, tangible info.

c. Offer always as much context as possible. Why you are presenting this info. Who can use it, for what purpose. 

d. Find a thread and follow it. Have a strong focus. Don’t mix too many different things without a clear focus or direction.  

e. Add your own voice. Make it heard. Comment. Express opinions. Take a stand.

f. Be timely and consistent. Choose a day and time and respect it.

Tools

  1. FlashIssue

Perfect Gmail integration. Use existing contacts as mailing lists. Drag ‘n drop design editor. Content discovery, and search and instant import. Free trial. Then starts at $10/mo for 500 contacts. 

  1. Goodbits

Friendly, elegant and simple to use. Integrates well with other services. Free to start.

  1. Handpick

Handpick your favorite resources and share them with specific groups of interested people. Free trial. $2.99/mo

  1. Curated

Everything you need to start a curated newsletter. Starts at $25/mo for 500 subs and 6 newsletters

  1. Refreshbox 

Allows you to pick up 5 tools or content resources per issue. Free.

  1. Curator

Collaborative curation for professional teams of up to 25 people. Starts at $199/mo

For more content curation tools please see: http://ift.tt/16op0k8 

Image credit: Flashissue.com

from MasterNewMedia Breaking New Media News http://ift.tt/183MS4X

Content Curation from A to Z: An Online Course with Robin Good


Content Curation from A to Z, a short online learning program, 
with Robin Good 


March 13th, April 24th and May 15th, from 12 to 14 (EST) 

Three online classes to learn everything you need to know to become a great content curator. 
Robin Good’s insight:

 

Interested in being showcased the best and most inspiring examples of content curation online while having me guide you, step-by-step, in seeing when, why and how it is done?

Are you looking to get more relevance and visibility for a specific topic? 


Are you trying to gain more clout over your key competitors?  


Do you want to create true high value content for your customer and fan base that is one order of magnitude better from that of your competition?

Learn everything you need to know to start practicing the art of finding, organising and presenting the best news, information or resources on a specific topic for a specific audience with this three-class program with me, Robin Good.

      

Level 1 – Fundamentals – Art, Science and Workflow

Level 2 – Practicum – Discovery, RSS and Archiving

Level 3 – for Business – Marketing, Distribution, Monetization 

What will you learn in this course:     

1) Why content curation is the future


2) How content curation is going to affect marketing, publishing, learning and search


3) What characteristics are required to do good content curation


4) Which are great examples of content curation already
out there


5) How many types of content curation are there


6) Which are the different kinds of tools available


7) What tools to use


8) What are the steps to curate a newsradar, a collection or a directory of resources


9) Where to find valuable content and resources to curate


10) How to evaluate and vet content to be curated


11) What are the legal issues involved


12) How to format and contextualise curated content


13) How to add value


14) How and when to provide full credit and attribution


15) How to preserve and archive curated content


16) How to monetize curated content  

Dates of courses: 


Content Curation – Fundamentals

Level 1 – Art, Science and Workflow Friday,

March 13th, from 12 to 14 (EST) 


Content Curation – Practicum

Level 2 – Discovery, RSS and Archiving Friday,

April 24th, from 12 to 14 (EST)


Content Curation for Business

Level 3 – Marketing, Distibution, Monetization Friday,

May 15th, from 12 to 14 (EST)  

Time: 
From 12:00 to 14:00 EST (Eastern Standard Time) 

Price: 
Cost whole course: $249/person Discounted early-bird tickets are available for those who buy in advance. 

Individual classes: $99


  
Includes also:

Audio-video recording

PDF of presentation materials  

One 30-min consulting session with Robin Good  
(very limited seats – 7 still available)
(first-come first-serve basis)  

Tickets and more info:

http://ift.tt/18TzIbN 

  


  
For more information or details contact: Ludovica.Scarfiotti@robingood.com




from MasterNewMedia Breaking New Media News http://ift.tt/18TYIjd

A Curated Collection of Free Video Documentaries Online: Documentary Addict

Robin Good’s insight:

If you are a documentary enthusiast like me, you will find plenty of great videos, curated and organized into categories and lists by visiting DocumentaryAddict.

The site, which is completely free to use, offers organised free access to nearly 5000 free documentaries already available online and keeps itself alive by using contextual ads from Google on its content pages.

Aside form the Google ads, which are not very intrusive, the site is extremely well designed and offers multiple ways to find the type of documentary you may want to watch, through 26categories, several compilation of top titles and a full search function.

Users can also rate and comment on each documenrary page providing a useful space for learning and exchanging from other fellow watchers.

A great example of sustainable content curation at work. By simply organizing and making more accessible what is already available out there, great value can be created as well as a community of passionate followers.

Free to use.

Check it out now: http://ift.tt/1jkpsGi

Added to Great Examples of Content Curation.

from MasterNewMedia Breaking New Media News http://ift.tt/1zWxIVd

Curate Your Favorite Links Into a Weekly Email Newsletter with RefreshBox


RefreshBox enables people to subscribe and create weekly 5-link-collection newsletters of their weekly professional best reads, tools or resources.”
Robin Good’s insight:

Refreshbox offers a good opportunity for anyone wanting to warm up to content curation without needing to invest a truckload of time.

The new free service allows you to easily pick any webpage or resource you find online, and to add your personal title and description /commentary to it, while saving to a draft newsletter that will be sent out to your readers once a week.

Contrary to what is suggested on the “What’s This” page on the Refreshbox site, I strongly recommend that you do not just pick but also introduce and contextualize the gems you find, that’s the real-value you can provide, while Refreshbox takes care of providing free-of-charge:

1. a web page for your curated newsletter(s),

2. a searchable hub where others can find it and

3. an easy-to-use subscription and distribution service without asking you anything in return.

Refreshbox allows you to place up to 5 links in each newsletter edition, and to hook up to other services (e.g.Product Hunt) to pick up your likes and preferences automatically and add them to your curated newsletter draft.

Excellent tool to warm-up to content curation by picking and collecting great resources to distribute via email.

Try it out now: www.refreshbox.co 

Chrome extension: http://ift.tt/1FXOGrX 

from MasterNewMedia Breaking New Media News http://ift.tt/1FXOGs1