Has Facebook's 'Like' killed off curators?

Bambi Francisco Roizen · July 19, 2010 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/10ab

Fark's founder and CEO Drew Curtis on the newest aggregators, publishers and the evolution of news

Fark has been a longstanding aggregator of news site for more than a decade. You might have seen a Fark button on news articles so you can "Fark" a story, much like you'd do with a "Digg" button. But now that Facebook has its "Like" button across the Web, how has this changed the landscape for these established curators of news, like Fark and Digg? Basically, is it the news aggregator napalm?

I asked Drew Curtis, the founder and CEO of Fark. For Fark, which drives 50 million to 100 million visits to other sites per month - has an opportunity to get visits back to its site. The difference between Fark and, say a Digg, is that Fark actually adds editorial value by creating an unique headline for a story. The popularity of a story lies more in the headline than the actual content. To this end, there's an opportunity for readers to "Like" their favorite headlines, Drew explained.

Drew also touches on new publishers, such as Demand Media and Associated Content - both content-churning machines. How are they changing the news business? I asked.

The big story that media misses out when writing about these companies is that these new publishers are an SEO vortex. They're great at attracting traffic through SEO. But can they keep them? "Just because you're attracting traffic doesn't mean you're attracting an audience," he said.

Watch and listen to Drew's thoughts on the two biggest changes in news over the last decade.

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Bambi Francisco Roizen

Founder and CEO of Vator, a media and research firm for entrepreneurs and investors; Managing Director of Vator Health Fund; Co-Founder of Invent Health; Author and award-winning journalist.

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Demand Media

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Demand Media is building a different type of new media company. With a proprietary media platform that powers the company's highly-trafficked domains and wholly-owned content media properties, Demand Media leverages cutting edge, user-driven publishing, community and monetization tools in its quest to define the next generation of new media companies.

Fark.com

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Fark is a satirical news forwarding site.  The Fark community identifies
odd, funny and entertaining news stories from across the Web and Fark
presents them in a clever and engaging way.

In January the site had over 4 million unique visitors and 60 million page
views - and there's tremendous growth potential beyond these numbers.  The
Fark community also submitted 60,000 stories and posted almost 900,000
comments in January alone.

In addition, the site is in a pivotal strategic position as it directs
substantial traffic outbound to other sites (Fark generated approximately 50
million outbound clicks in January).

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Drew Curtis

Joined Vator on

Founder/CEO/Sole Owner Fark, Inc

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