Computers vs People; Man against Machine. Filtered or Curation. Am I surprised that finite issues being faced beyond survival include these perennial debates translated into everyday practicalities.

First u have the scenario of out of mind, out of sight, the machines will just sort all content into the perfect google result and make it perfectly presentable to a client.

Funny thing is it’s amazing how good u can get an algorithm. And these days even without a programmer, with Google pumping more and more of their labs into their advanced search filters which can then be exported as a feed (even the new google.com alerts while still not a trillion webpage index, still provides a feed now which is good for the non feed web page universe)

Startups too have APIs and widgets which means even compared to 2004-7 what used to cost $20K, can now be done closer to $2K. Sometimes, for a standard use case.

But the machines cant do everything.

For example a classic scenario is a client has a brand, whose name also has other meanings; It could be a phrase, place, person, or even another business in a different location.

In this case - suddenly the $2K perfect algorithm just went out the door. And u may have to place yer handy “curator” in 2.0 speak to sort through the false positives.

Before going direct to shit kicking goal however - You can go back to algorithm: Make the searches more specific : Longer phrases, more keywords, more geo-parameters, limit the content types.. Try and test different combinations - and maybe u can get rid of alot of the duplications.

But u still end up having to curate the index of potential matches for whatever u r trying to track.

Quite often too I’m finding a typical scenario is a client is part of by definition a functional division, business unit etc : Maybe they r in marketing, or only responsible for below the line, or above the line, pr, digital, search : And u need to train your machine and curator to drill down to the product group, function or quite often “The Campaign” that is being looked at.

Which often means u start up filtering the internet universe for a client’s whole business but need to drill down to the functional and then campaign level.

All of which u can do.. but the icing on the cake is always curation. The trade off is always time it takes to do it and lack of budget available for it.

Once clients are spending a fair bit higher of their marketing and “other” budgets on social related digital media and marketing - then there will probably be more dollars for the social curation of brand mentions.

When I compare the cost of social media to traditional and by definition the media cost is largely excluded; Programming is in the single number of hours or days + Design is often not more than a header, avatar, wallpaper and some other style guide work. Maybe a couple page minisite for design and development.

This isnt 3-6 month design and development.

Clients want results from The Social..

And I’m sure once there are successful social campaigns and budgets that dont end up being on the news for their racism failure. Then the next client will spend.

Suffice to say u r seeing more brands spending very little creating a positive feedback loop : Tweet about latest marketing. Drive target consumer to facebook and do something. Retweeted on Twitter.

That’s the outline of the post. Will 2010 be the year that machines and curators co-exist hehe Can u tell I watched The Lost Boys and Day Breakers last nite ? Um, but Now I have to write it… put the links in for the pictures… but im goin4 a run… so later…