3 Case Studies of Ethical Content Curation – Part 3

Now that we’ve covered the basics of ethical content curation and offered some best practices, let’s get more specific about what ethical curation looks like in action. Curata’s new ebook features a range of real-world curation examples from across the web that exemplify practices like attributing to the original source and offering additional commentary. We’ve graded each of these examples from A to F and explained what the curator did right (and wrong).

Here’s a look at three case studies:

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Talking Points Memo
Grade: A

Talking Points Memo keeps readers up to date on US politics, drawing from a variety of credible news sources around the world. This post curates an on-camera interview The Guardian conducted with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The curator quotes and links to the original interview mentions and links to additional resources on the topic to provide the reader more context. We give this example an “A” for the combination of quotes and other commentary, as well as the careful use of attribution links.

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Slashdot
Grade: B+

Slashdot.org delivers news on software, hardware, and other technology. In this example, a user excerpted a fairly technical article, added some original commentary, and clearly linked to the original source. We might improve this example by providing more commentary so that it is longer than the excerpt and retitling the post. However, the user does attribute the original source, earning a grade of “B+.”

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CMO.com
Grade: B

Through CMO.com, Adobe provides chief marketing officers with timely and relevant news about digital marketing. This post clearly cites the original source (Mobile Marketer), excerpts only a small portion of the original piece, and includes a strong call to action driving traffic back to the original publisher. However, the curator has not added any additional commentary for this specific audience or retitled the piece to include brand-appropriate keywords. CMO gets a curation grade of “B” for this example.

Want to see which curation sites earned a failing grade? Download Curata’s latest ebook for more examples and tips on ethical curation.