From prehistoric times until 2003, human beings cumulatively created five exobytes of data. That’s five billion gigabytes. We now produce that much information every 48 hours. We send out 100 million emails every minute. Bombarded by this blizzard of bytes, we can’t possibly manage it coherently. What to do?

Welcome to the era of content curation. Like museum curators, custodians of wisdom and taste guide you to smart decisions about what to read, what to wear and what to buy – all saving you time and money. Just trust our judgment, they tell us.

For consumers, curation is the Google antidote. Rather than zillions of results generated from a black box algorithm, personal shoppers mail you boxes of customized goodies via monthly subscription services.

Here are some samples:

Birchbox – This “discovery commerce platform” ships you fragrances, lotions, body sprays, and hair products.

Blissmobox – Offers organic and green products. Like non-toxic office snacks.

Babbabox – Children’s’ activity boxes and “super cute” parenting tips.

Barkbox – Yup, for pets.

And those are just the B’s.