After the death of Google Reader, many content writers were left hanging without their trusty content curator. Some writers in a forum I frequent have even brought up the idea of creating a site where writers can compile their research. Well, there is no need for that! Several sites already offer a place where writers can compile research they’ve completed, as well as search for new information based on curated content. Enter the world of content curation with these five sites.
Bag the Web
At Bag The Web you’ll find a free place where you can store, organize and offer unto others links to web content. As you might have suspected, the idea here is that you are bagging up your categories of research. Say you want to research travel guides in the US for some travel writing you’ll be doing soon. Start filling your proverbial bag with links that spark your interest. Rather than saving everything to Bookmarks, or having an ever endless list of research links, Bag The Web makes it easy to keep your research in order. Plus, you can easily share your research via Twitter, Facebook, blogs or Wikis. For writers looking for a way to keep track of research for sharing across multiple platforms, this site is the bee’s knees.
iFlow
Next up is iFlow, which is not to be confused with I-Flow which are products for post-surgical pain relief. For this curation site, you have to use your Facebook account to log in, a turn off for some writers. However, once inside the iFlow machine, you are in for quite a treat! The set up is well designed. Instead of having a place where you can save your research, however, iFlow follows a more fluid approach. Start by discovering “flows” that are already established, such as:
- Only Politics
- Tech Time
- Bob Dylan
- Zombie Apocalypse
- Mind Your Business
- Social Media
If you prefer to find out the latest information on any given topic, check out the social curation category. Here you will be connected to your Facebook feed, which includes your personal news feed but without the opportunity to “like” or comment on items. This is truly a time saver for those writers looking for ideas and inspiration based on the most popular or current events—without the time-suck of actually using Facebook. In addition to “flows” you can create collections of your own research. Everything from YouTube videos to audio bites can be added to these collections—ideal for writers interested in immersing themselves in any topic.
Trap.it
Now it’s time to Trap.it. Note that this curation program is available for iPad. Considering Trap.it is the sister company of Siri, it’s little wonder why! On Trap.it, also known as Trap!it, you can enter a keyword or URL of your picking to devise a “trap.” Whenever new content appears on news feeds, podcasts, blogs, journals or video feeds—from 100,000 plus sources—your trap traps it for you. This system uses AI technology as seen with Siri, so to provide some of the most applicable content in quality and originality.
KBucket
Finally we have KBucket. No this isn’t one of those celebrity couple name mashups. KBucket is a real thing even though it is only in Beta form at this time. The KBucket motto is “Start your research with someone else’s research,” which is a nice way of piggy backing on the hard work of other writers. No need to sign up, and you don’t have to link to your Facebook account. All you have to do here is type a word or phrase into the search engine. In addition to finding links to sites posted by previous researchers, you also get tags along with the links, which as we all know can be a major help when using SEO.
Miranda B writes wherever she goes and about whatever she does, which makes for some highly entertaining and often surprising content.
