Knowledge-collectors
New platforms are being built to help consumers sift through the information age, organising ideas instead of producing them in a collective attempt to streamline the internet.
Built on the concept that manual human curation is under-rated, Startupy is a new platform by design strategist Sari Azout. She’s creating a digital playground for people to better navigate the start-up marketplace, which is becoming more saturated by the day. People can use the database to flow between start-ups, content, people and topics with the same fluidity as their mind. As Azout describes it: ‘Startupy is Roam-style organisation, with Substack-like content, Tumblr-like aesthetics, StumbleUpon serendipity and Wikipedia-like collective vibes.’
While Startupy takes the youthful energy of Alternet Economies and applies it to the start-up sector, other platforms are explicitly targeting the next generation of information-seekers. One of these is Somewhere Good, which will also act as a digital playground for next-gen internet users when it is launched in autumn 2021.
The inspiration from the platform – which allows people to curate their own ‘worlds’ based around their passions – came from founder Naj Austin’s first venture, Ethel’s Club, a Brooklyn-based community for people of colour. Austin discovered that members were asking their peers for more recommendations, from cooking clubs to therapists, essentially becoming ‘a de facto Google for members’, and so Somewhere Good translates this concept into the virtual world.
Curator careers
With creators legitimising themselves with Accredited Influencer initiatives and brands expediting the creator economy with tools to help them take control of their finances, it’s only a matter of time before young people establish full-time careers as curators.
Part of the move to monetise curators’ good taste will require new platforms that seamlessly turn influencers into retailers without piling on additional workloads. With the tagline of ‘make money while you sleep’, US-based platform Emcee is letting young people earn a passive income by curating online storefronts that feature their favourite products from the web. If a browser clicks to buy a brand’s product, that curator – known as an Emcee – will receive a commission for fuelling the sale.
