Interesting mutations of the digital world

We are all experiencing and enjoying two interesting mutations or developments of the digital world. I decided to share my views on the two in the notes below.

Rise of the micro-curator

Brainpicker, Kottke and many like them are awesome in the range of interesting content they gather and share. They are master curators and little wonder that they have a large number of followers like me.

With the arrival of Posterous and Tumblr, blogging has become easy and curating infinitely easier. This has resulted in the rise of the micro-curator. One can argue that micro-curators were always there. True. It is just that their growth has been fuelled with the entry of Posterous and Tumblr.

Using these tools, regular bloggers have created Lifestream for satiating their appetites to stock and share items of interest. I must admit I too have created one and I am thoroughly enjoying the process. More importantly, it has enabled new entrants in the blogging world to curate based on amazing themes, like this one.

Micro-curators enable information to reach the extremities of the digital world. I liken them to evangelists who spread ‘the message’ to remote corners of the globe. Micro-curators also simplify the presentation of information (signals vs. noise) and provide readers with meaningful information in manageable doses. And as with the example above, many of them cater to special interests by taking on a specific theme. The growing success of Posterous and Tumblr is testimony to this fact. I would urge readers to explore these tools and have fun.

The world is getting local

The digital world has expanded our horizons with tons of information from around the world available at the click of a mouse. It is often used as an example to describe us as ‘global citizens’. That may be so. But increasingly, the same digital world is working strongly in the other direction. It has strengthened all things local. I am talking about conversations I see happening in Facebook and Twitter. I see the actions and connections that these conversations are bringing about. Be it jobs, tweetups, events or replicating actions that have been successful elsewhere. Information may be global in nature, but actions are very definitely local. 

So, what do you think?

(Image courtesy:aldoaldoz)