LOUD3R offers templates for publishers curating on a budget

LOUD3R responded to the demand by launching an end-to-end solution on the LOUD3R curation platform. LOUD3R Sites integrates with the existing platform to give publishers a design template so editors can create sections more quickly. 

 

The template cuts down on development time and back-end resources by providing user interfaces for resource-constrained publishers, Tom Balamaci, vice president of business development at LOUD3R, said in an interview.

 

LOUD3R already works with a number of large publishers — such as U.S. News and World Report, The Chicago Tribune and The New York Daily News — which use combinations of automated aggregation and curation, and normally customize their own look and feel using the platform on the back end. But Balamaci said he saw an interest from smaller publishers for an off-the-shelf solution for curated topics. 

 

"With Sites, we took a stab at creating templates that publishers could easily deploy on their own,” Balamaci said. “We think that complements what we’ve done in the back end.” 

 

The new feature has already been implemented on a handful of websites through a partnership with Content That Works,  a custom content provider that offers holiday guides for  local news sites like the Houston Chronicle. LOUD3R powers the topical sections for the guide.  

 

LOUD3R is a software-as-a-service solution, priced monthly based on how many categories a publisher uses (each category includes thousands of keywords) and how much customization/consultation they require. The Sites feature is a free ad-on to the service. 

 

Next year, LOUD3R plans to experiment with more off-the-shelf tools for publishers, such as iPad apps and widgets, Balamaci said.

 

 

LOUD3R's new template feature is another signal that content curation is becoming more seamless and accessible to publishers of all sizes. Curation technology, like curation itself, isn't mainstream among all publishers. Regardless of whether companies "get" how to do what they do best and link to the rest, the implementation is evolving.

 

Aggregation and curation tools range from robust platforms customizable for big publishers to the simplistic, more manual tools easily integrated into a blog. (The Master New Media blog offers a nice comparison of a few tools on the market.) 

 

Speaking at the Digital Hollywood conference in New York recently, Chris Neimeth, chief commercial officer at Daylife, another curation platform, noted that media companies with shrinking margins haven't been able to fully take advantage of curation technology; for many publishers, curation is still a manual process. 

 

Neimeth said there's a need for a new economic model in content creation, beyond just fair use of content through curation. For instance, he envisions more options for purchasing the full text of an article, hinting that Daylife is working on those sorts of initiatives. Already, we're seeing news exchange/syndication models like Ebyline and Publish2 beginning to emerge.

 

“I would suggest in the next year or two we're going to see solutions evolve whereby media companies are able to serve content more efficiently,” Neimeth said. “It's something that we're working on.”