"So far in the evolution of the Web we've seen a tug of war between whether we need people to find and accomplish what we want online, or whether we only need machines" writes Sarah Lacy on Pandodaily.
It's a dialectic between algorithms and social curation that we've commented on before (recently here) and that I even wrote about. But as "nearly anything raising money in the Valley now is using big data as its opener" - she writes - the conflict takes new proportions.
Depending on their vision and culture, some startups are trying to solve problems with algorithms, some others with social or human curation. But the smart thing is not to choose, she believes, as "any modern Web company really needs both."
As a team of entrepreneurs, we've dealt with that at Scoop.it, starting with a first product that didn't satisfy us to finally pivot to the mix you're using now: topic-centric, likely-to-be-relevant algorithmic suggestions combined with streamlined publishing features make it easier to be a curator. But easy doesn't mean automated and we leave it to you to do the part that no robot can: express yourself through a conscious decision that also adds some context. Curation; not filtering.
Time for some Humanrithm then?
