In the land of noise, the curator is king

An excerpt from an upcoming article.  “Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until  2003.” — Eric SchmidtCombine the above fact with low/no cost reproduction and we are soaking in the global soup bowl of digital abundance. Most everything is becoming a commodity and it is no longer what we buy so much as it is who we buy it from and, more importantly, how it comes to us. We seek to be led to a product without knowing we are and by people we deem credible. One of my favorite examples of this recently is This Is My Jam, which does nothing except allow you to choose one song at a time to highlight as your “it” song of the moment. Each time you change it, a gesture is pushed to your Facebook wall and/or Twitter page. The weight of it being only one song combined with the profile or deemed social value of the person profiling the song drives usage. This fundamental shift in commerce applies to brands as well. Those who communicate authenticity and exude credibility are uniquely positioned to drive revenue as a platform for the the relevant exchange of goods and services — even those which they do not themselves produce. In an era where it costs almost nothing to create and launch a digital product and where the potential rate of return is so high, that it’d be foolish not to try to bring that kind of startup to life. Just remember to keep it simple and resist the urge to muck it up with needless complexity.