There used to be a time when people looked forward to consuming content, be it on TV, magazines, books or newspapers. This was when trusted third parties curated and published content that they felt would be accepted by a large portion of their target audience. The noise, either in terms of advertisements or content the consumer was not interested in, was minimal and easy to ignore.

Then came the disruption in the industry with the Internet, social media and smartphones. This threw open the gates of publishing to anyone and everyone. There are millions of people actively publishing blog posts, actively publishing videos on Youtube.

This has been revolutionary in allowing the long tail to be addressed. People whose interests didn't fall into the 'popular' category now have content being published just for them. You pick any topic and you are bound to find tons of published articles, books and videos on it. Books and newspapers are finding it hard to stay relevant in the traditional sense.

But this has resulted in a lot of noise making it an effort to actually find what one is looking for. Many a time, the noise is content-free.

The need for curation still exists. There is just a lot of freedom in choosing curators. You can either opt for a trusted brand or you can do it yourself using a feed reader, Youtube subscription or through e-mail alerts and newsletters.

If you are an active consumer of content, I'd like to hear your preferred mode of curation. Who do you turn to?