Baratunde Thurston on Content Curation, Real-Time Search, and "Analytics Porn"
In New York City, on the 16th floor of the Roger Smith Hotel, we caught up with social media superhero Baratunde Thurston, web editor for The Onion.
Thurston started getting into this whole "Internet" thing in simpler times when the social web was called Usenet. He now carves out his niche at the overlap of the Venn diagram of comedy, politics, and tech. As an official Internet old-timer who makes it his business to stay relevant, Thurston has particularly useful insights on the business of curating applicable content with great efficiency and timeliness.
"I remember," Thurston said, "back in 1996 or 1997, when you could finish the Internet... You could stay up until two or three in the morning and go to sleep and know, 'I read the Internet today.'" Simpler times, indeed.
So, with the mind-boggling multiplicity of blogs, news sites, and social networks, how does a professional netizen maintain cultural and technological relevance? And what tools does the modern, socially cognizant webmaster use to track and optimize traffic in real time? Call us cruel, but we prefer you watch the video and hear it all firsthand.
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As an official Internet oldtimer who makes it his business to stay relevant, he has particularly useful insights on the business of curating applicable content with great efficiency and timeliness..
Is there a way to customize my info requirements considering the overload that is happening? I found the video very useful, but still feel that there is need for some specific tools that can help a person.
As Baratunde Thurston said: in the old days people were reading the Internet.
Now the content needs to be presented on a video else people don't take the time anymore. Like in this post.
That could become a big problem for Google as Google indexes perfectly text but not video content.
Off topic, but:
Ahh the good old days. I remember the first time in '92 connecting to a server in China (vs/ local BBS).
I was so excited I ran around to all my friends telling them I was connected to a server in CHINA! Wow!
...they didn't care...lol
i try not to look back too much to the g.o. days but as editor in chief of "bbs magazine" (print, bbs and - yep - web) things were so much more ... surprising and exciting, while at the same time incredibly frustrating: adjust dip switches on my 300 baud modem - grrr. but dean i know your excitement all too well.