What’s Wrong With Content Curation

In case you hadn’t gathered it yet, I’m new to this whole Blogging/content creation thing. It’s exciting, it’s intimidating, and it’s definitely challenging.

New bloggers like myself always are on the lookout for new things to write about and new ways to package “the goods.” I just stumbled upon something that you may have known about for a long time: Content Curation. Now, bare with me as I wrestle with my thoughts on it.

(Spoiler alert: I think I hate it)

What Is Content Curation?

As I understand it, content curation in the blogging world is the idea of taking someone else’s thoughts and words, and repackaging them few your audience. Keep in mind, content curation like this includes giving full credit to any and all original sources. It is NOT plagiarism (per se).

Here’s Jon Och explaining Content Creation (it’s a long video, but you’ll get the idea pretty quickly)

So basically, what he’s done, is summarized a few Steve Jobs quotes into big bullet points. He’s got a brand/product to sell, and he’s using his blog to drive attention to his expertise in his field.

He’s being 100% open and honest about it, which I can appreciate. I can also appreciate the tactic for his goal: driving traffic.

What’s Wrong With Content Curation

The problem here is that it’s fundamentally dishonest. For me, the core of blogging (and maybe you think I’m a mile off-base here), is to say “I have an original thought, here it is.”

In Jon Och’s example, his idea is “Steve Jobs had an original thought. Let me reword it for you.

I think there’s a lot of truth to the expression “there is nothing new under the sun,” and I don’t begrudge anyone taking time to recognize genius when they see it. But content curation isn’t a great biography, it’s taking a story or idea and re-posting it (with appropriate credit given to the source) with the hope of drawing traffic.

Maybe I’m an idealist 1 week into this blogging journey, but I really hope I can draw traffic with a few original thoughts instead of telling you what other people’s original thoughts were.

What do YOU think about content curation? Maybe I got it all wrong…