Curating a story: Pinterest

Scrapbooking, journaling, and curating on Pinterest. It is a first day for everything. Today, I have found out that curating  on Pininterest is a nice experience: colorful, creative, engaging.

“Curation is the act of individuals with a passion for a content area to find, contextualize, and organize information. Curators provide a consistent update regarding what's interesting, happening, and cool in their focus” (Rosenbaum & Rosenbaum, 2012). Thus, I used Pinterest to “sav[e] and shar[e] stories [I found] around the web” (Perez, 2015), focusing my attention towards materials related to what I liked most throughout the course: digital literature and storytelling. It was fun! #digitalliterature

Follow Adela's board Digital Literature #NMN on Pinterest.

I used this opportunity, to ‘talk’ a bit about digital storytelling. #digitalstorytelling

I found interesting that some consider one cannot write a story on Twitter (using only a few characters), and the word curator  used on Pinterest is a bit exaggerated. For instance, this seem to upset  Harold Koda, an “actual curator” (Tahltan_channel_surfer, 2012): “The very meaning of the word [curator] is starting to change, and that makes me crazy” (Tahltan_channel_surfer, 2012).  I appreciate Koda’s opinion, but I also appreciate that if 70 million users on Pinterest are embracing the change, there is little he can do about it -- especially, in an era when “content is currency” and “creation, optimization, distribution, and curation”(Nicholasbrealey.com, 2015) are key in succeeding online.

References

Nicholasbrealey.com,. (2015). Content is Currency. Retrieved 14 February 2015, from http://nicholasbrealey.com/boston/content-is-currency.html

Perez, S. (2015). Pinterest Appeals To Publishers With New Article Pins, Pushes To Become A Bookmarking & “Read It Later” Service. TechCrunch. Retrieved 13 February 2015, from http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/24/pinterest-article-pins/

Rosenbaum, S., & Rosenbaum, S. (2012). Content Curators Are The New Superheros Of The Web. Fast Company. Retrieved 13 February 2015, from http://www.fastcompany.com/1834177/content-curators-are-new-superheros-web

Tahltan_channel_surfer, P. (2012). a-machine-to-return-the-songs-to-the-land: http://hermitagemuseum.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/an-open-letter-to-everyone-using-the-word-curate-incorrectly-on-the-internet/. Aboriginalcuratorinresidence.blogspot.ca. Retrieved 13 February 2015, from http://aboriginalcuratorinresidence.blogspot.ca/2012/05/httphermitagemuseumwordpresscom20111004.html

Inanimate Alice, episode 6, Blue World

In this episode Alice pays homage to the water world and seeks adventure on the Atlantic ocean, sailing along the coast to greater destinations and wilder experiences. Dolphins and icebergs were a great start to her voyage.

The freedom and openness of the ocean compared to the cityscapes of Alice's previous travels reflect a new direction, where a wayward life with only a compass bearing constitutes a plan.

This was a fun project and I loved making this episode. I wish it could have been longer and I wish the program had been friendlier to use. The watermark that is embedded in my video is terrible and I tried everything I could (except paying for the program) but to no avail.  All of the images and video are mine, from my sailing adventures on the sea.

In my story, Alice is in Edmonton and she is 20. The pictures I have used in my video were created with Paper Artist, an application on my android phone. Although, it's been quite a busy day to figure how to remove the animoto watermark, finally Alice is alive, telling her 30 seconds story. Here it is:
alice