Robin Good: Good questions curators ask: “We tend to imagine the curator’s job as selecting objects, however, I think good curation is really about relationships. A curator does not merely ask, Is this interesting? They are asking, Why this? Why here? What does its presence make possible? What story emerges from bringing these particular things together?
Communication specialist · independent publisher
Helping experts and small firms show why their expertise is unique and worth paying for. Credibility. Authority. Trust. Curation.
Cited in 135 books and papers, including Net Smart by Howard Rheingold.
Now
What I do
Help experts become trusted advisorsI help experts and small firms become trusted advisors in their niche. I teach them to make their credibility and authority visible.
Who I helpExperts, consultants, advisors, journalists, as well as entrepreneurs and small firms who do good work and are hard to find.
How I workFriendly, direct and frank. I listen, analyze, and propose alternatives. I show you where you’re weak, what to keep and what I would consider changing.
The audit · $300Video report and analysis plus a one-to-one session. Find out more
What I writeTRUST-able, a newsletter for experts and entrepreneurs looking to increase their visibility, authority, credibility and trust. Read it here
Background
What built my name
MasterNewMedia, 2003 to 2014A multilingual magazine for communication professionals. In four languages, more than $1M invoiced to Google by 2008. Read the story
Cited in 135 books and papersIncluding Net Smart and Informal Learning.
Television and designCanale 5, RAI TG2, Alitalia identity.
The book and the stageda Brand a Friend (2017). LeWeb, TEDx, International Journalism Festival.
Tools since 2000Mastermind Explorer and the T5 catalog.
Explore my work
Start with what interests you: read my viewpoints, follow the NewsRadar, explore a format for sharing what you know, or assess a personal homepage with the Trust Grader.
Viewpoints and sourcesWhat I Think, Who I ReadBrowse twenty viewpoints on trust, credibility and curation. Each connects to my original articles. I also explain what I learned from twenty-five people whose work I read.Browse my viewpoints →
Map and selector25 Ways to Show What You KnowExplore twenty-five formats, from reading lists to comparison tables. Open a format to see what it involves and real examples. Set your expertise, time and difficulty level to find a place to start.Open the 25 Ways →
Trust and Credibility for Experts NewsRadar
my hand curated news picks of relevant stories about credibility and trust for independent experts, entrepreneurs, journalists.
- I follow primary sources and trusted specialist curators whose coverage spans thousands more.
- I hand-pick and curate each story myself.
- I explain why each story matters and link to its original source.
Latest News from the NewsRadar
Robin Good: Even regulators now concede watermarks can't stop deliberate disinformation. What remains decisive is who the source is and whether they're transparent about their process. That's where to put your attention: use transparency as trust-building, not as detection-proofing.
Source
OpenAI Help CenterProvenance signals (Content Credentials, SynthID) in OpenAI-generated content
New · Free · I built it
The Trust Grader
For personal expert homepages. It checks how your page meets my stated credibility criteria and gives you three places to start improving it.
What it doesIt opens your page in a real browser, the way a stranger would, and runs 34 checks. Some look at your name, your face and who you help. Others look at proof of your work and how easy the page is to read. You get the score, six groups with a green, amber or red dot each, and the three fixes that would add the most points.
How I chose the checksThe checks draw on research about credibility, including studies in related contexts. I chose the weights. The score measures how a page meets those criteria, and it cannot tell you whether the person deserves your trust. Read the research and its limits.
Credibility Facts
Vincenzo Cosenzavincos.it
ScoreTrustableA stranger can see who you are and why to believe you.
81out of 100points
Who is behind this page22 of 25
What you do and for whom6 of 6
Proof of your work19 of 30
Is it alive9 of 12
Can I read it easily16 of 18
How the page talks9 of 9
Fix first
1. Testimonials+4.1 pts
2. Be honest about limits+3.4 pts
3. Update the copyright year+2.1 pts
This score shows how the page meets the Trust Grader’s stated criteria; it does not measure the person’s overall trustworthiness.
These are the first opportunities the grader identified. I can help you decide what matters most for the people you want to reach.
Trust Grader result by Robin Good4 Oct 2026
Vincenzo Cosenza’s page and score appeared in the public Trust Grader gallery on 4 October 2026. Scores can change when pages or checks change.
TRUST-able, my weekly newsletter. Also in Italian.
T5, zero-cost tools for experts and indie authors.
What makes me different
01
Make expertise visible
I work only with experts or people who have spent years passionately studying one specific subject. Many are independent authors, entrepreneurs or journalists. I help them make their expertise visible, so people can understand how they work and think—not only what opinions they hold.
02
Organize information with purpose
I teach them to organize existing information, tools and resources around the needs of a specific audience, adding their own selection, filtering and perspective.
03
Not more publishing or promotion
I do not teach people to publish more or to promote, market, or push for more sales. I encourage useful resources to be shared freely and publicly, so readers can learn and see the care behind the work.
04
Build trust through service
I help them communicate in ways that build credibility, authority and trust through useful work and service—not scarcity or boastful claims.
Credentials
Checkable facts about my reputation online.
Mentions & citations
135 books and papers mention, cite or reference my work
Among them Net Smart by Howard Rheingold, Informal Learning by Jay Cross and Content Nation by John Blossom. Each one links to where you can check it.
See all 135 →
60+sold-out talks on my book tour, plus LeWeb, TEDx and the International Journalism Festival
25+years publishing online since 2000
$1M+invoiced to Google by MasterNewMedia by 2008
2004the year I began earning only from my own online work
Which AI knows me, and what it knows of me
What you are looking at
A test made by intheweights.com. It asks a set of AI language models, from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, xAI, DeepSeek, Mistral and others, the same question about whatever name you type in: “Who is this person?” Type my name and it checks me. Type your own name, or anyone else’s, and it checks them instead. Each model has to answer from memory, with no web search.
What it means
Each bar shows how strongly one model recognizes me. All of them know who I am, even the smallest one, Llama 3.2 with 1 billion parameters. My strength score is 886, which the site places in the top 2% of the names it has checked. This screenshot was taken on August 10, 2026.
How to check it yourself
Go to intheweights.com, type your name, or anyone else’s, and press Enter. Or ask any AI chat “Who is [name]?” with web search turned off. Scores move a little from one run to the next, and the list of AI models the site checks keeps changing too, so what you see today can look different tomorrow.
Education and teaching
1982
BFA
Experimental and Interdisciplinary Arts, San Francisco State University. Magna cum laude.
1999
Professor
Digital Communication and Personal Branding at IED, Rome.
01
Author
“da Brand a Friend”, published by ROI Edizioni in 2017. It has an Italian podcast with the same name available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
02
Speaker
On stage at LeWeb, the International Journalism Festival, Forum Eccellenze, TEDx, and at over 60 sold-out local events organized for the book tour.
03
Curation Evangelist
Documenting the role, benefits, skills, methods and tools of content curation for indie publishers, since 2003. See the Content Curation Official Guide and TRUST-able.
04
Tools Scout
Discovering, testing and reviewing tools in public since March 2000, with Mastermind Explorer. Editor of T5, a catalog of zero-cost tools for experts and indie authors.
05
Information Designer
Designing multilingual publications, websites and other multimedia for maximum legibility, clarity, order and cleanliness. Not for beauty. Worked for FAO, UN, RAI.
06
Video Director
Director and producer of opening titles, station breaks, promosongs for Canale 5, Retequattro, Italia 1, RAI TG2 and Tribuna Politica (with Piero Gratton and Guido Vanzetti).
07
Music Curator
Private party DJ (’70s), radio DJ (Radio Hanna, RAM102, RTM), Music Director at Radio Hanna (1977) and Station Director at M100 (1998), Rome, Italy. Club DJ (2021-2024).
08
Startup Advisor
In-depth startup feedback on positioning, features, design, usability and bugs for independently owned new apps and tools.
What I offer
Six kinds of work. Most people start with the audit.
01 · Start here
Auditing
Making you see what a prospect, reader or new client sees and thinks when they meet your website, newsletter or tool across email, web and social. Start here.
02
Positioning
Helping you identify what key problem to solve and for whom and define your profile identity, proposition and communication strategy.
03
Editorial planning
Identifying key topics to cover, content formats, tone and style, so that you are read and appreciated by humans, ranked by Google and cited by AIs.
04
Reputation and branding
Designing how to become respected and trusted by standing apart through strategic curation approaches, evidence, attribution, and a thinking in public approach.
05
Marketing
Making your business more visible and desirable not by loudness or volume but through value building, authenticity, generosity, transparency and true customer care.
06
Analyzing and reporting
Checking results on a regular basis to see what works, what does not, and what to keep in mind for the future.
The audit · $300
I study your online presence and record a video analysis of what I see with written notes you keep. Then we meet on a one-to-one online exchange and decide what to do next.
See how I think
Where I show my work in the open.
New · Free · I built it
The Trust Grader
Type the address of your home page. In about two minutes you get a score out of 100 for how credible it looks to a stranger.
What it doesIt opens your page in a real browser, the way a stranger would, and runs 34 checks. Some look at your name, your face and who you help. Others look at proof of your work and how easy the page is to read. You get the score, six groups with a green, amber or red dot each, and the three fixes that would add the most points.
Why pay attentionI built it. The checks come from my own articles on credibility and from 25 years of publishing online. My own page scores 99. The gallery shows real pages with their scores, so you can see what a trustable page looks like.
Credibility Facts
Example pageyourname.com
ScoreCredible, with some gapsSee other Credible, with some gaps pages →
67out of 100points
Who is behind this page20 of 25
What you do and for whom4 of 6
Proof of your work9 of 30
Is it alive11 of 12
Can I read it easily15 of 18
How the page talks8 of 9
Fix first
1. Real examples of your work+5.9 pts
2. Others cite and mention you+5.2 pts
3. Testimonials+4.1 pts
These three are where you could start. I can look at your page and tell you which ones matter most for the people you want to reach. Yes, I want this
Trust Grader score by Robin GoodExample
Example label. The page and name are made up, so no real person is shown here.
Viewpoints and sourcesWhat I Think, Who I ReadTwenty viewpoints across seven topics on trust, credibility and curation, and the twenty-five people I read who got me here.Open What I Think →
Map and selector25 Ways to Show What You KnowA map of curated content formats, and a selector to pick the one that fits the resource you want people to bookmark and come back to.Open the 25 Ways →
TRUST-able, my weekly newsletter. Also in Italian.
T5, zero-cost tools for experts and indie authors.
Writing
What I write
My newest articles, and the ones read most.
Newest
Become a Trusted News Source: Curate a Niche Newsradar#95 · 7 October 2026
Measure Your Personal Website Credibility in Less Than 2 Minutes: Trust Grader#94 · 30 September 2026
25 Ways To Show Your Expertise#93 · 23 September 2026
Most popular
Curation as Knowledge Infrastructure: Building Archipelagos of Meaning#53 · 29 October 2025
A New Way to Build Trust and Authority: Prompt Frameworks#52 · 22 October 2025
The Best Curated Newsletters of 2025#60 · 17 December 2025
TEDx Assisi · 2015
What I stand for
In November 2015 I gave a 20-minute talk at TEDx Assisi. I spoke about the five things that matter most to me.
- Helping others
- Learning to learn
- Listening
- Sharing
- Living with passion
Watch the talk on YouTube (20 minutes)
Testimonials
Recent
“An excellent marketing newsletter on building your brand. Useful for freelance journalists.”
Mike ReilleyJournalistsToolbox.ai · 2026
“Robin Good is a senior knowledge warrior, expert trusted mentor (tools, PKM and curation), with a genuine intent to help others. I can’t recommend his newsletters enough.”
Younes Ben Amara · 2026“Thank you for your insight and forward thinking. You can already see how Robin’s ideas are taking hold with the direction social media seems to be leaning. Looking forward to learning more.”
Breana Nannetti · 2026“Robin Good provides real-world examples and explains them in a way that allows you to find inspiration and use them to your advantage and to showcase your expertise. It’s clear that Good has extensive experience in curation.”
Roser Manté · 2026“I recommend it without hesitation to professionals who want to transform their experience into a rigorous, credible, and distinctive curatorial practice.”
Rachele Raso · 2026More voices
“Practical. It doesn’t push you to ‘post more.’ It shows you how to think better: how to curate, connect ideas, and actually be useful.”
Kay Walten · 2026“From my experience, this curation-centered approach is very relevant to those with expertise who are looking to gain extra visibility and authority online in months rather than years.”
Enrica Bandini · 2026“The strategy Robin proposes moves you away from the ‘hustle’ of having to constantly write new essays and shows tangibly that you really know your stuff.”
Joe MillsInfolosophy · 2026
“Robin is clearly a master of this field, and his insights are not only comprehensive but among the most practical I’ve encountered.”
Bill Roche · 2026“Robin always shares amazing tips and strategies to help you build trust with your audience.”
Jamie NorthrupMinimalist Hustler Daily · 2026
Since 2016
“Studying with Robin has been a total game-changer for both my business and my life. His deep knowledge, business approach, methodology, and spirit of sharing are a constant source of inspiration. Simply the best.”
Corrado BertonazziSuonarelaBatteria.it · 8 January 2019
“Robin is a beacon in the night for me. He has absolute expertise in online marketing, with an approach grounded in listening, sharing, and building truly valuable relationships.”
Dario ValtancoliActing coach · 11 May 2019
“His three A’s, authoritative, reliable, and authentic, are an increasingly rare beacon in this online world full of fluff!”
Sylvia ColombiniParental coach, Felici&Imperfetti · 17 November 2019
“In every call he gives 110%, he never holds back and always tells it like it is, directly and without beating around the bush. That candor pushed me to do better.”
Dr. Anselmo StornelliFarmacia Stornelli · 28 January 2019
“Professionalism and a big heart! He’s definitely the only one in the field who answers questions without acting like a big shot.”
Iuri RicciMusician, Tibetan Bells · 6 November 2018
“Your tangible confidence was exactly what I was looking for, and your transparency during our call whispered to me, it’s about time.”
Nicoletta ConficconiMarketing consultant · 16 January 2018
“Exceptional expertise, effective communication skills, meticulous attention to participants in his courses.”
Luigi de SeneenStrategic marketing · 27 October 2018
“I’m following all his advice, and thanks to it I’ve begun rethinking my online web gallery. You should be taught in schools.”
Andrea Belluzzifumogallery.com · 16 August 2017
“Approachable, precise, and thorough. Top of the line! My company definitely benefited from his book.”
Daniele MatarozzoFisioSaluteComo.it, VolleyClinic.it, LarioBeautyClinic.it · 16 February 2019
“In that short time you taught me that if I don’t start from that gaze, nothing has value. I met a teacher, first and foremost of life.”
Pino CasalePharmacist, Farmacia Regina · 13 November 2017
Background
What built my name
From 2003 to 2014 I was chief editor and publisher of MasterNewMedia.org, a multilingual online magazine for communication professionals that I founded, in English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
It went from zero to more than $3,000 a month in one year. I then started other language editions and shared half of each advertising revenue with a blogger-editor in another country who translated everything I wrote into their language. By 2008 it had invoiced over one million dollars to Google.
About 150 of the original 3000+ articles and reports survive at MasterNewMedia.com, reformatted, checked and updated.
Cited in 135 books and papersIncluding Net Smart and Informal Learning.
Television and designCanale 5, RAI TG2, the Alitalia identity.
The book and the stageda Brand a Friend (2017). LeWeb, TEDx, International Journalism Festival.
Tools since 2000Mastermind Explorer and the T5 catalog.
1976DJ at the first pirate FM radios in Rome
1980sTrailers and opening titles for Canale 5, then information design at RAI TG2
Late 1980sDesign boutique, up to the corporate identity of the Alitalia group
1990-2004Communication and technology consultant, advisor, trainer for big NGOs (FAO, World Bank Institute, UN, World Food Program, ILRI, IPGRI, IFAD, and more).
2003 to 2014Editor/publisher of MasterNewMedia, in 4 languages, $1M+ invoiced to Google
2017-2020The book “da Brand a Friend”, its podcast (still going), and an unforgettable fan-financed tour of Italy, 60+ local show-events, showing what I think firsthand.
2021-2026TRUST-able the newsletter focusing on trust-building for experts and indie entrepreneurs. Experimented with Good Tools and Curation Monetized.
The journey, from Rome to Koh Samui
I was born in Rome, Italy. From 1976 I worked as a DJ at some of the very first pirate FM radio stations. I earned a BFA in Experimental and Interdisciplinary Arts from San Francisco State University, magna cum laude, in 1982.
Back in Italy I produced on-air promotion for Canale 5, then opening titles for Mediaset and Tribuna Politica. At RAI TG2 I redesigned how typography and information graphics were used in television news. In the late eighties I opened a design boutique and worked up to the corporate identity of the Alitalia group.
Later I worked for over 10 years with big non-profits as a digital publishing advisor and trainer. In 2000 I started to write and share what I learn each day about communication and the digital world to help indie experts, journalists, artists and consultants. Since 2004 I have earned my living only online.
In 2015 (at 58) I decided to abandon city life, family, friends and to go and live alone on unique islands around the world. Away from stressed people always running, asphalt, cars, metal, cement. Near nature, the sea and peaceful surroundings. So far, Terceira (PT), Holbox (MX), and now Koh Samui (TH) have been my new homes.
Inspired by
The people behind how I think.