Almost 2 years ago, I introduced the term “the billion channel universe” and focused on the idea that people, not faceless organizations devoid of personality, would be the most important channels.

Since then, Twitter has taken the social media hype world by storm and we’ve become familiar with individuals whom we trust serving as the curators of the content we consume.

I like Twitter, but love blogs. And I think Google Reader is the best (though not everyone agrees with me).

Perhaps because I’ve been blogging so long, I don’t know, but for those blogs that I follow (and you can see my blogroll on the bottom left of my site), I have pruned it to such a point that I feel like I am getting the best content and ideas for the areas that I care about.

Recently, however, instead of adding new blogs to my list, I’ve added new, trusted members of my social network to my list.

Those whom I follow I trust to provide solid content with a high signal:noise ratio in an consumable quantity (granted, that’s all subjective, but hey, that’s life).

What I’ve found, and really begun to enjoy, is that these individuals do the work for me (as I try to do the work for you by my curated list of recommended reads). They go through 100 blog posts and say “these are the top 4” (as I do.)

Each day, I get a different serving of bloggers (some of whom I’ve heard and others I haven’t), but instead of committing to a binary (I will read this blog or I won’t), I get recommendations from people I trust.

Lesson: If you are trying to build your own Global MicroBrand, this could be a very effective avenue for you. You don’t need to be a blogger and create original content, you can be a curator, so that your network looks to you and says “I don’t need to ready 100 blogs, I just read what so-and-so recommends.”

Hopefully, I can serve that purpose for you as Maddie, Adam, Vekatesh, Justin, and Barak do for me (with more to come, I am sure.)

This post musically inspired by...CCR, I Put A Spell On You