Why "Aggregation/Curation By Hand" is Still Relevant

Over the last 15 or 16 years, I've transitioned from full-time factory work / part-time political work to full-time political work. Now I'm transitioning in a different direction, trying to replace some of the political stuff with work in "Internet Marketing."

Oddly enough, though, I'm finding myself drawn to the same mechanical process -- aggregation and curation of material by hand -- as a way of fulfilling perceived demand in the niches I'm working in.

Back in the mid-1990s, I started working with (now-defunct) Free-Market.Net, hand-aggregating news stories and commentaries for their publication, Freedom News Daily (which, after going away and coming back under the auspices of the International Society for Individual Liberty, is now a re-brand of the publication I founded with some other FND veterans in 2002, Rational Review News Digest).

One of the things I'm doing now (for the last month or so) is called TE Juicebox. It's an online calendar (and daily email newsletter, etc.) of events called "surf promos" at marketing sites called "traffic exchanges."

What do these two things have in common? They require a human being to locate, summarize and link up -- in other words, aggregate and curate -- a bunch of material from different sites so that the end user gets "one-stop shopping" for a variety of products in a specific niche.

Could this be automated? Yes, but it would be difficult, because so many different sites use so many different formats to convey their information. And it wouldn't be as good, because that variety of formats (among other things) would likely cause almost any automation scheme to include material that doesn't belong and miss material that does belong.

Some of the bigger players in aggregation/curation do automate. Some of them do it quite well. But honestly, I haven't seen any that do it as well as a human or team of humans can do it, especially within highly targeted niches.

The problem, of course, is that aggregation/curation by hand is more labor-intensive on an ongoing basis and makes for lower profit margins. You get less content for more work, and monetization of web content is often a function of "throw as much crap at the wall as possible; hope that some of it sticks and moves ad impressions or results in affiliate program sales."

But, in my opinion, human aggregation/curation is still necessary, still results in a better product, and will be necessary and result in a better product for the foreseeable future. I think the market actually agrees with me on that, at least to an extent. People are more likely to get word of a development via Facebook or Twitter (where it has been hand-curated by their friends) than at an automated news site. The immediate adoption of Pinterest by so many people wasn't an accident, either.

Ad Hoc Symposium #3

The first two of these ad hoc symposia quoted Proudhon and Paine respectively, so I'm a little scared to throw something by little old me out beside those two luminaries. But a snippet from recent (private) correspondence kept dragging me back for re-thinking, and I'd like to see what others think, too.

So, apropos of Allison at Cato, the departure of Tucker from Mises to Laissez Faire Books, the departure of Richman from FEE to ??? ...

The "mainstream libertarian" tanks are moving from merely "mainstream" to "establishment." I think that's from a combination of hubris ("we've got a SEAT AT THE TABLE!!!") and addiction to "major donor" money that comes with implicit strings attached (don't go overboard criticizing corporate welfare, thou shalt not touch our intellectual property foundations, etc.). The question there is whether or not we let them take the label "libertarian" with them.

The anti-war right continues to be drawn into the black hole of paleo-conservatism.  The question there is whether the "anti-war" part can be rescued before that "movement" disappears inside its own event horizon.

And the "libertarian movement" proper is, for all intents and purposes, becoming identical with the libertarian left. The question there is how much of the existing "libertarian movement" can we peel off with us, rather than losing to the establishment and paleocon splinters?

Discuss.

Ad Hoc Symposium #2

From Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man:

Whatever is the cause of taxes to a Nation, becomes also the means of revenue to a Government. Every war terminates with an addition of taxes, and consequently with an addition of revenue; and in any even of war, in the manner they are now commenced and concluded the power and interest of Government are increased. War, therefore, from its productiveness, as it easily furnishes the pretence of necessity for taxes and appointments to places and offices, becomes a principal part of the system of old Governments; and to establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches. The frivolous matters upon which war is made shew the disposition and avidity of Governments to uphold the system of war, and betray the motives upon which they act.

After which he goes off the rails by assuming that "republics" are different. But anyway ... discuss!