Marisa Kurtz

Dr. Davis

December 4, 2011

Formerly, the verb, “to curate,” was typically reserved for the fine arts. Curators were solely employed at lofty museums; however, curator has come to refer to aesthetically minded individuals creating some kind of coherent, artistic collection. Online, curation has become a phenomenon. New York Times writer, Alex Williams, admits, “On the Web, the word — and the concept — have taken particular hold, not a surprise given the Internet clutter” (Williams). Aggregation suggests a total gathering of objects, but curation suggests that each of the objects collected were chosen carefully, creatively, and consciously. With incredible amounts of information on the Internet, users have the creative ability to sift and sort through choosing only the websites, jpegs, and blogs that interest them as an individual. Websites like Tumblr, Pinterest, and Polyvore allow users to combine images from multiple sites into not only a single collection but also a personal collection.

Increasingly, users are moving beyond the role of passive technology consumers. Philip DesAutels admits, “Instead, they are proactively integrating data and services to create their own novel and personal information systems” (DesAutels 186). As a platform, the Internet makes multiple concurrent interactions possible. Web 2.0 allows the typical lay user to create his or her own information systems without the knowledge of a trained programmer. The web is shifting away from traditional conceptions of product and service in favor of an “ideology of openness, interconnectedness, and interoperability” (DesAutels 186). Fundamentally, user-generated information systems are human based. Services are built to recognize the user’s preferences, promote customized content, and allow the user to add or altar that content. Aggregation systems like websites and blogs make personalization possible. Whether websites, like Tumblr, or devices, like the iphone, aggregation systems facilitate the integration, composition, and orchestration of multiple services and platforms by non-technical users via simple, interface-driven features” (DesAutels 187). Through aggregation systems, users are becoming creators of their own technology spaces. Emerging social networks triumph self-expression; user-generated content drives websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter as users seek “more connectivity, more user control, and more new technologies” (Halbert 926). Simultaneously, technology and ideology have rapidly produced a consumer that is interested in creating and customizing his or her world.

The rise of blogging reflects the user trend to contribute to the Internet. For writers like Andrew Sullivan, blogging meant free publishing and an international audience. The medium fosters a connection between reader and writer that has been previously unknown (Sullivan). On the upside, blogging is a spontaneous expression, immediate, unavoidable, instant, and self-published. On the downside, blogging requires little editing or lengthy review. Sullivan argues, “Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident prone, less formal, more alive” (Sullivan).

In class, we talked frequently about the success and failure of blogs. When we debated about blogging on October 18^th, I saw blogs as ineffective forms of interactivity. Rather than blurbs of interesting information, I thought of most blogs as personal manifestos. Because blogs have a personal quality, the medium can lack credibility to a larger audience. Websites like Blogger and Wordpress are targeted toward lengthy word posts. Internet users value one sentence links to a lengthy paragraph. It may help writers to think of blogging as a broadcast rather than a publication (Sullivan).  

Halfway through the semester, we checked in on our original blogs. Because my original blog did not interest me, I had not updated it. After our class discussions about blogging, I discovered the use of my current blog was ineffective. The blog provider, Blogger, was targeted toward writers. Image and link additions were possible but second tier to the space used explicitly for writing. As blogging continually was one of our assignments during the semester, I moved my blog to another blogging site. I wasn’t lacking information I wanted to share, things I wanted to talk about, or time to update my blog. I wanted a blog that could aggregate my interests.

I switched my blog provider over to Tumblr. Tumblr allows me to post text, photos, quotes, links, chats, audio, and video. In addition, Tumblr allows me to aggregate posts from other bloggers onto my own blog. I like that Tumblr allows users to make comments or leave interpretation up to the viewer’s own preferences. Since I made the transition from Blogger to Tumblr, I have used my Tumblr almost everyday to reblog pictures, stories, anecdotes, or quotes. Tumblr is an example of how Internet users are transforming blogging to fit their personal needs.

On the Internet, most of the websites that attract my attention exchange of images. . Pinterest and Polyvore are two websites that make personal curating possible. Pinterest allows users to reblog photographs, comment on them, send them to friends, and categorize them in personal collections. Users can trade images on the website, but users can also select random images on the Internet and submit them to the Pinterest site. By pulling images from any website, Pinterest continues to grow. The website also features a rolling log of images your friends post to their own collections. Polyvore is a more focused process of curating. While Pinterest contains multiple interest categories, Polyvore seems to be focused on fashion. Like Tumblr and Pinterest, users can also comment on posts. Although limited in text, audio, and video, Pinterest often links images directly to their sites of origin. For example, I wanted to buy a pair of earrings posted yesterday. I simply clicked through the image to the designer’s website and completed my purchase.

As my favorite medium so far, I decided to compile my portfolio on Pinterest. To begin my Pinterest blog, I searched for key terms on their website. Typically, I have used this feature to look for Alexander McQueen or Jackson Pollock pins. This time, I used community, Internet, writing, blogging, pinterest, curating, and polyvore. I found several inspirational images that encouraged me to reconsider some of my previous research. This semester, aggregation and curation were the two themes that stood out to me. Overall, Pinterest does an interesting job in flushing out the positives and negatives of writing on the web. As a completely user-generated website, Pinterest can be customized, updated, altered, and curated. Visually, the images displayed are enticing, easy to explore, but easily forgettable. Users can jump around to whatever images interests them; however, the pervasive use of images does not embrace text as a prominent part of the site. The biggest problem I encountered during this project was Pinterest’s lack of linear progression. The last image posted precedes previously posted images. Thus, my web writing portfolio should be explored through the ideology of interest (like my blog and Pinterest) rather than linear progression (like print text).

Bibliography

Philip, DesAutels. “UGIS: Understanding The Nature Of User-Generated Information  Systems.” Business Horizons 54.SPECIAL ISSUE: SOCIAL MEDIA (2011): 185-192. ScienceDirect. Web. 5 Dec. 2011.

Halbert, Debora. “Mass Culture And The Culture Of The Masses: A Manifesto For User- Generated Rights.” Vanderbilt Journal Of Entertainment & Technology Law 11.4  (2009): 921-961. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Dec. 2011.

Knapp, Jessica. “Cloud Collecting.” Ceramics Monthly 59.9 (2011): 26. MasterFILE  Premier. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.

Stromer-Galley, Jennifer. “Interactivity-As-Product And Interactivity-As-Process.” Information Society 20.5 (2004): 391-394. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 17  Nov. 2011.

Sullivan, Andrew. “Why I Blog.” The Atlantic. Nov. 2008. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.

Walsh, Bob. Clear Blogging [Electronic Resource] : How People Blogging Are  Changing The World And How You Can Join Them / Bob Walsh. Berkeley, CA : Apress ; New York :  Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer- Verlag New York, c2007., 2007. U of Georgia Catalog. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.

Williams, Alex. “The Word ‘Curate’ No Longer Belongs to the Museum Crowd - NYTimes.com.” The New York Times - Breaking News, World News &  Multimedia. The New York Times, 02 Oct. 2009. Web. 05 Dec. 2011.  <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/fashion/04curate.html?pagewanted=all>.