"While Web 1.0 in the ’90s and early 2000s was static and read-only, Web 2.0 was social and interoperable."

"In short, with democratized access, the web became more saturated than ever before, and as consumers, we began to spend more and more time trying to sort through it all."

"there’s an often overlooked difference between following someone to be entertained and following someone to make a purchase. Put simply, influence is not synonymous with taste."

"if Web 2.0 was all about you, then Web 3.0 is all about us."

"Today, it’s fidelity over convenience. And when curation is at the forefront of every purchasing decision, trust is currency."

"In today’s oversaturated world, we need curators to help us separate signal from noise."

"Culture is officially trickle-up; to tell us where to go, we believe it’ll be curators all the way down."

"Once we solve the Social Token Paradox, capital will no longer be the primary status symbol in web3. Instead, status will be composed of how many communities you are a part of, or how many things you’ve done online."

"The more online history you have, the richer your own story is, and the more things you can be a part of in the future."

"democratizing access to capital is the intermittent step to on-chain reputation. These are exciting proof points of changes to come"

"when the token price is higher, the community naturally becomes more desirable to join."

"The problem here — in what I call the Social Token Paradox — is that with this mental model, tokenized communities are incentivized to uphold exclusivity."

"to make the token go up in price, you have two choices: you can either increase the price of the token, or you can decrease the number of tokens available to prospective members."

"Curation, in a sense, is its own form of intertextuality, or the shaping of a text’s meaning by another text."

"In any case, curators can find success by building up a targeted online presence and then providing curated content to that audience."

"it’s possible to monetize free content if it’s curated well — consumers are willing to pay someone who has good taste, and it’s an easy way to add a revenue stream to your business."

"“There are only two ways to make money in business: One is to bundle; the other is to unbundle.” — Jim Barksdale"

"“We’re living in a pivotal time in the history of mass communication — what we believe is the golden age of new media.”"

"The real scarcity isn’t content anymore. It’s attention. When it’s impossible to absorb everything from the flood of information, the best we can do is pick and choose what matters to us most — or, better yet, find the people who can do the curating for us."

"We’re all consuming more media, and there’s an increasing willingness to pay for high-quality content."

"Curators are the new creators, and as consumers, we’re going to be willing to pay someone with good taste to help us sort through the ever-growing mass of information at our fingertips."

"The best brands (and individual influencers, at that) are the best at an always-evolving curation as a service."

"Find initial traction Shift the emphasis from the individual to the greater media brand Scale and continue to add value"

"Content curation hooks people in with the promise of learning new skills while saving time, and it keeps them coming back by building a sense of community around a particular subject or vertical."

"bundling and curation can be a strategic decision for your business, as long as it’s done correctly."

"As an early-stage consumer investor, my 1 question to founders almost always regards defensibility."

"Why do people come? Why do people stay? Why do people share? Why do people pay?"

"What gets users on the platform? Can this be distilled down to a single sentence? Who is your (precise) customer, and what do they want?"

"In consumer businesses, frequency and time spent are key. What are the features or actions that receive the most user engagement? What are the switching costs? Is there lock-in?"

"Is there a propensity to share the product or platform via social media or word of mouth? A key concept here is virality, when a product spreads from one user to another through direct customer to customer contact."

"How will economics change over time? What drives differentiation — price, service, brand? Is it sustainable and defensible?"

"To make a long story short, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to disaggregate signal from noise."

"The real scarcity isn’t content anymore. It’s attention."

"When it’s impossible to absorb everything from the flood of information, the best we can do is pick and choose what matters to us most — or, better yet, find the people who can do the curating for us."

"Zuckerberg’s Law, or the tendency to share more and more on social media over time"

"Dunbar’s number, or the average number of stable social relationships one can maintain at a given time (it’s around 150)"

"Zipf’s Law, which describes how in any system of resources there are a small number of items of high value, and a “long tail” of many more of low value"

"In the end, we always end up somewhere in the middle… but it’s a lot of swinging back and forth on this creation/curation pendulum until we get there."

"there’s room for a new market of creators as curators"

"As we saw with The Browser example, it’s possible to monetize free content if it’s curated well — consumers are willing to pay someone who has good taste"

"What Marc Andreessen understood at this tipping point was that technological innovations — like in transportation, with Uber, and hospitality, with Airbnb — often emerge when it seems we need them least."

"So it’s fitting that exactly a decade later, we’ve come to another watershed moment. Software has eaten the world, and now it’s a commodity. It’s not about the technology anymore. The era of the engineer has ended; the era of the curator has begun."

"The combination of all these factors helped lead to what we call today the creator economy, a growing segment made up of the “independent businesses and side hustles launched by individuals who make money off of their knowledge, skills, or following.”"

"In short, with democratized access, the web became more saturated than ever before, and as consumers, we began to spend more and more time trying to sort through it all. In a state of analysis paralysis, how do we disaggregate signal from noise?"

"But being a curator isn’t as simple as it might seem. In what we like to call the Social Media Paradox, there’s an often overlooked difference between following someone to be entertained and following someone to make a purchase."

"Put simply, influence is not synonymous with taste."

"Now, in today’s state of overabundance, this power dynamic has shifted. Consumers are only getting smarter, and we want something better — better sources, better designs, and better durability (both in value and sustainability)."

"it’s fidelity over convenience. And when curation is at the forefront of every purchasing decision, trust is currency."

"It’s why we see success in companies like Basic.Space, which sits at the intersection of curation and commerce. By curating not just products but sellers, too, Basic Space celebrates the rugged individualists of tomorrow while simultaneously giving the rest of the world direct access. This is how curation scales."

"But social tokens today still have yet to adopt the latest mental model."

"If the goal of web3 is to overturn the Internet status quo, then the structure of social tokens today is fundamentally flawed from the ground up. Tokenized communities are centered around what you have — often social or financial capital — while they should instead be centered around what you do."

"But to make the token go up in price, you have two choices: you can either increase the price of the token, or you can decrease the number of tokens available to prospective members."

"Either way, this restricts access to the community and promotes exclusivity, codifying and enforcing a level of scarcity that feels almost at odds with web3’s vision of a truly open Internet."

"The decentralized communities of tomorrow will be centered around what we do, instead of what we have."

"“We’re all consuming more media, and there’s an increasing willingness to pay for high-quality content."

"I believe we’re at the start of a creator breakout.”"

"subscribers of The Browser pay to have them sent in a curated list."

"The Psychology Behind the Need for Curation"

"Build a personal brand or audience."

"Fulfill a need in a particular market."

"Create an extra category within an existing business."

"Become an additional revenue source."