Digital Curation: Your Content Concierge
Researcher: Arielle Cohen
Originally published October 22, 2022
If there’s one thing our technology obsessed world wants more than anything, it’s convenience. From smartphones to smart watches and even smart homes, technology is helping to make every part of our day to day lives a whole lot easier. Nowadays, we have all the information we could ever possibly need in the palm of our hands. So, how could it get any better? With advanced digital curation, our tech will become more specific, more personalized, and more helpful.
Digital curation is defined as the active management and enhancement of digital information assets for current and future use. Our devices hold mass amounts of personal data like: what we find compelling, what we don’t like, what our days look like, among endless other information. By using our devices to consume media and as a tool like a calendar or calculator, we are actively training them to understand our routines and interests. A clear example of media curation you may be familiar with is on Spotify. The way we interact with the music, whether it by adding a song to your playlist or quickly skipping past it, is what allows for features like suggested artists and personalized playlists. Essentially, advanced technology is able to sort through large amounts of data, simplify it, and present it back to us in a more useful way.
Something you may not have realized is actually media curation is Siri Suggestions, the recommendations your phone makes throughout the day that act almost like a content concierge! There’s nothing more satisfying than pulling down my search bar and having all the apps I’m looking for sit right at the top of my menu. In the mornings, my phone knows I’ll be checking the bus schedule, in the evening it knows it’s time for TikTok, and on my walks home from class I’m reminded that I haven’t called my mom yet that day. It works by identifying the apps that you are likely to use based on factors such as your current location, the time of day, or even upcoming calendar events, and then it places these suggested apps beneath the search bar on your phone. As our phones continue to advance, so do these features.
These helpful advancements aren't just making our media more personalized, they may be making us spend more money. Nowadays, our advertisements are eerily specific. To many, targeted ads are intrusive and a bit creepy. According to Forbes, 73% of American adults consider it an invasion of privacy. The problem is, personalization is reliant on data. Any pushback to aid technology in making these predictions makes digital curation significantly less accurate. Consumers are much more focused on the potential of its risks than the potential of its benefits.
This is largely an issue of transparency. Media users feel like they’re being tricked into giving up their private data, without realizing they’ve already consented to giving it up. It’s basically a tradeoff that they’ve signed off on. Even though information about how our data is being used is readily available, it all comes back to convenience. By highlighting key components of their security protocols and data procedures, companies can build more trusting relationships with their audiences allowing for an easier experience on both ends.
Entertainment
Many of the apps we know and love the most are so successful because of their advanced personalized algorithms. TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram are just a few of the apps who have nearly mastered media curation.
Just think about how different your digital experiences would be if your content wasn’t tailored “for you.”
Whether it be BabyTok, QueerTok, FoodieTok, or GamerTok, your phone knows which sides of TikTok you best belong on. There’s no denying it: their algorithm is addictive. As of January 2022, TikTok has over 1 Billion active monthly users that spend an average of over 850 minutes on the app, according to the Influencer Marketing Hub.
Streaming services have been champions in the world of digital curation. Hulu, for example, is able to provide its users with a plethora of personalized content to immediately enjoy. Before you even begin using your account, you are guided in indicating which TV shows and films you already enjoy and what genres you like best. The more you aid the algorithm, the more accurate your recommendations will be.
News
Perhaps being a more urgent necessity than personalized entertainment, digital curation is especially useful when it comes to organizing news and information. Curated news helps people to make sense of the world, a task that would be rather daunting otherwise. It allows for information to be easier to comprehend and more relevant to one’s own interests and priorities. No longer will people need to scroll through pages of articles to find the one that's most accurate and most valuable. While many may not have the time to research news sources or comb through endless options, they want to be in the know about what is happening in the world around them.
Recognizing the importance of news curation, many startups have devoted their talents to specifically fix this issue. Dataminr, for example, was created to help individuals and major companies ”gain an earlier line of sight into high-impact events and stay on top of industry and competitive developments.” They offer three different products: a system for newsrooms, businesses, and the public sector. Some of their clients that you may be familiar with are CNN, The Washington Post, and Netflix.
Positioning
With a never ending supply of knowledge, entertainment, and news, the digital world can often feel overwhelming. Media curation is an advanced solution to make things simple. In the future, this digital concierge will allow users to find value in a sea of information. Content curation will continue to advance in such ways that will make our entertainment more enjoyable, our news more relevant, our knowledge more defined, resources more useful, and so forth. Things are going to get personal, so let’s get used to it.
Additional Resources
- Additional Resource New Imperatives in Digital Curation and Its Workforce | National Research Council
- The Future of Personalization and How to Get Ready For It | McKinsey & Company
- The Past, Present and Future of Automated Predictive Technology | Forbes
