ZD 24.40: The Content Curation Toolchain
Come on in for a tour of our Content Curation Factory!
In this issue: Investing in trust, sick healthcare systems, advice on coups, the economic power of the eras tour, and a visit to the Zeitgeist Distilled Content Curation Factory.
The Distilled Spirit
💵 Investing in Trust ()
Trust has evaporated through repeated rounds of late societal unrest. Receding trust creates a market opportunity to make trust a tradeable commodity. The reputations of the last few standing institutions take on more importance as faith in the ones around it fade. Kyla Scanlon looks at this through her well qualified quantitative window. She provides a framework for thinking about which companies to invest in the next cycle.
🤮 This is Sick ()
If we learned one thing from the events of the week it is that many Americans are fed up with the healthcare system. It is a huge, complicated beast that occupies a large chunk of the economy making it hard to dislodge. The incentives within the beast are misaligned, leading to many cases of denied coverage and far too many medical bankruptcies. Unfortunately there is no relief in sight given current politics.
⚔ Expert Advice On Coups and More ()
Edward Luttwak has lived a storied life and has authored works such as Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook. His insight into strategy is legendary. Statecraft sits down with him for an interview. Topics range from his advice about executing 21st century coups, Edward’s experiences working for Kazakh dictators and his views on the multiple ongoing international conflagrations.
💃Eras Tour Economics ()
Taylor swift’s Eras tour shattered the record for concert tour gross on a per show and total basis. Organizers likely cleared nearly $883 million pre-tax. They could have cleared more based on secondary market ticket prices. This kind of spend has knock on effects. Trung takes you through a lot of the hows and whys and adds some personal takes from his experience. It was the show of the year.
The Zeitgeist Curation Factory
Capturing and curating internet content is the backbone of this newsletter. To make a production like this work effectively, you either need to be highly disciplined or have an efficient toolchain to automate information capture. Anyone who knows me can attest that I am far from disciplined. Fortunately, I am adept at leveraging software solutions to solve problems. Here are some of the tools I use to support this process, which are worth exploring for your own workflows.
🚂 Make: The Workflow Engine
Make, nee Integromat, is a platform for automating workflows and data exchanges between applications. I’ve spent significant time with Zapier. There is nothing wrong with that tool, but I find Make more effective for many tasks. Its visual design tool makes creating complex workflows intuitive and manageable. Make offers integrations for most platforms that matter, and the advent of affordable and effective AI integrations has made it even more powerful.
Specific to this case is that they work with Raindrop with is a key tool in the chain. For this publication, Make is used to capture incoming links from Raindrop and Feedly and push them into Notion, streamlining the entire content curation process.
🔗 Capturing Every Raindrop
Raindrop is an exceptional tool that excels at one thing: capturing links and allowing you to organize them using folders and tags. On a practical level, this ensures I never lose track of valuable reads. I organize links into folders based on use case, which can be shared publicly or integrated with Make for further automation. Raindrop’s desktop app is well-designed and makes reviewing captures seamless. At just $24 a year, it’s an outstanding value.
📰 Feeding With AI
Feedly is another indispensable tool for discovering and consuming content. As a robust RSS reader, it supports virtually any feed on the internet. What sets Feedly apart is its AI-driven features, available through the Feedly Pro subscription, which enable you to create highly customized news feeds. This is an excellent way to uncover sources that wouldn’t typically appear on your radar.
Feedly integrates smoothly with Make and other automation platforms, making it simple to push curated content into tools like Notion.
👑 Notions of Grandeur
Although I’m late to the Notion game, I’m quickly realizing its potential. This versatile knowledge management tool strikes a unique balance: it allows for freeform writing while seamlessly integrating structured data. Notion enables you to unify unstructured notes and organized databases in a single workspace.
On a practical level what this means is that it enables me to have a document that represents a given issue of this publication. I can then attach different source links to that publication. I can also attach different “stories” to a given publication for the longer form content such as this piece. I can detach and reattach these pieces as I craft an issue, allowing me to keep it all straight from development to publication.
For individual users, Notion’s core features are free, making it an accessible yet powerful option. I’ve only scratched the surface of its capabilities but am excited to explore further and share updates as I refine its use in my workflows.
🎁 Wrapping Up
As we move into 2025, managing and organizing information effectively is more critical than ever. Tools like Make, Raindrop, Feedly, and Notion empower anyone—disciplined or not—to capture, organize, and act on the wealth of information available online. By integrating automation and AI into your workflow, you can transform chaos into clarity and ensure no valuable insight slips through the cracks.
Whether you're building a personal knowledge base, curating content for a publication, or simply staying informed, this toolkit is an excellent starting point. Experiment with these tools, adapt them to your needs, and see how they can revolutionize your productivity.
Here’s to making 2025 your most organized and efficient year yet!
The Look
Kyle Chayka lays down 20 new rules of media over on
. Welcome to the new era.
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