Content aggregation strategies and tools for engagement

Content aggregation is a sometimes controversial, but increasingly accepted practice among eMedia companies. As aggregation evolves from straight RSS feeds to emphasize context and value-added analysis of third-party information, what's the right approach for your publication? These resources should help jump-start your thought process. As always, we welcome your feedback.

Curation vs. aggregation

The recent news that the Huffington Post surpassed the Washington Post and LA Times in online visitors affirmed what many media professionals already knew: There’s real business in aggregation. Whether there are real profits as well remains to be seen. While HuffPo says it can be profitable, we found one aggregation-focused publisher that says it already is: Watershed Publishing, which produces B2B trade publications in the marketing/advertising, retail/e-commerce and defense sectors.

Aggregation solutions move beyond the RSS feed
As content demands increase and editorial staffs shrink, digital media companies are continually on the lookout for new sources of content. While aggregating third-party information has helped fill the content coffers, many publishers are looking to move beyond simple RSS feeds. To address that need, a handful of service providers are offering content aggregation solutions that focus on quality over quantity.

The end of content aggregation as we know it
When it comes to the problems plaguing digital publishers, a museum is the last place one would think to look for solutions. However, there is a growing movement asserting that journalists and museum curators have more in common than meets the eye. After all, museum curators, like journalists, are often tasked with condensing complicated subjects into easily digestible and enjoyable exhibits.

Curation vs. aggregation: A VitalCast interview with Mindy McAdams
In the latest installment of our VitalCast podcast interview series, we asked Prof. Mindy McAdams, who teaches online journalism at the University of Florida, about her favorite example of smart curation, what makes curation different from aggregation, and whether curation saves (or makes) any money for publishers.

The year of the video curator?
Journalistic curation – the practice of organizing, vetting and summarizing content to make it more digestible for a target audience – is gaining momentum in the online video space.

Fair use laws get tested in AP case
What exactly constitutes fair use of another’s content? Turns out there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to Internet copyright, as the legal language leaves lots of room for a court’s interpretation.

Curation and aggregation Web resources

Can 'curation' save media?
Mixed in with the current cacophony of consumer content is contextually relevant material that needs to be discovered, sorted, and made "brand safe" for advertisers. Curation is the new role of media professionals.

Twitter: Digital content curator
While Twitter is certainly a great way to connect with people, it’s been a personal online game-changer as a way to access great content. In many ways, Twitter has become a way to build an effective and interesting team of personal content curators, who comb the Web for interesting, insightful, valuable and entertaining content and deliver it in a streamlined package.

Content aggregation for links, traffic and buzz
Human aggregators who can research, collect and put together the best material for your niche can be a huge benefit. Here’s a list of nine content aggregation ideas that foster links, buzz, attention and connections.

Curate the cloud
The good news for journalists is that demand for people able to separate fact from fiction, and sort content into contextual and accessible collections, is on the rise, as the Content Cloud - already vast and hard to navigate - is poised to quickly surpass even the most generous projections of size and scope.　

Using the 'Steal-O-Meter' to gauge if stories steal or promote
With so much "borrowing" of content, the time is right to create a taxonomy of sorts for all the excerpting and linking that goes on between logs and news organizations - and between news organizations as well. The result: a "Steal-O-Meter" that graphically denotes where a practice falls between "stealing" and "promoting" of content.

NewsNow aggregator comes out fighting against newspaper threats
In a move slammed by commentators as being akin to a herd of donkeys suing the inventor of the wheel, a number of national UK newspapers have apparently been making legal threats to content aggregator service NewsNow. What these newspapers seem to be doing is shooting a messenger and not addressing the roots of their problems.

 

 
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