A social media dork?
Yes, that’s me!
If you want to get the latest news in the tech industry, you’ll need to be dependent on Google Reader. In my case I use FeedDemon, Reeder for my phone, and Flipboard (best app ever!) for my iPad.
I initially started off using my trusty bookmark folders and making sure I check my ‘News’ folder every day but that didn’t work out as I ended up forgetting to check some sites and then eventually all of them.
Then I tried subscribing to them via email and that just drove me nuts. It was stressful seeing you have 100 unread ‘emails’ per day!
I wish I made full use of Google Reader 3 years ago!
I have a bunch of sites I subscribe to (including those I feel are thought leaders) but I’ll only list out three of the major tech news sites for now and hope you’ll help me add some more to it.
1. TechCrunch
Quick background on TC for my fellow dorks. TechCrunch was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005. While some of you may know Mike (we’re tight like that, first name basis nah mean?) as one of the biggest jerks in the tech media industry what with pictures like this:
…he’s actually a good example of how it’s never too late to build something great and even out of your ‘career path.’ Mike founded TC when he was 35. Before that, he was just an average corporate lawyer! Now, TC makes about $10 million a year with 9.2 million visitors a month.
It’s no wonder all tech-inclined people seem to think everyone and their grandmas are reading (or used to read – some may think they’re too ‘mainstream’ now) TechCrunch.
Sometimes though they end up being like a less gossipy Valleywag spilling details on CEOs fighting and whatnot. Add to that all the drama they’ve been happily publishing after the AOL acquisition. But hey, at least you’re in the know, right?
2. Mashable
All girls know this. Pete Cashmore is HOT. (Btw, Pete Cashmore is taken. Sorry.)
His hotness and love life aside, Mashable was founded when Pete was NINETEEN, sick, and in Scotland. Interestingly, it was founded the same year as TechCrunch. It gets more pageviews (50M pageviews per month) than TC but makes less money – although they did say they’ve doubled their revenues.
You might run into some duplicate stories if you also follow TechCrunch but what I like about Mashable is it has a lot of social media news and tips you can follow. It’s definitely not as product-oriented as TC but with Mashable, you know they really try to engage their readers and give a more ‘community-oriented’ aura.
If you’re an “interwebz marketer”, you know you should be reading Mashable. They might be posting 100 articles a day (double that for TC) but you have to check it at least once every two days and scroll through the articles to stay up to date.
3. GigaOM
The last but definitely not the least on my list.
GigaOM was founded in 2006 by Indian writer, Om Malik. He was already 40 when he founded GigaOM. And he isn’t a jerk. Ha.
If you don’t want the AOL drama nor news on Ashton Kutcher or Justin Beiber, this is a good option for you. Some readers say they’re about to take TechCrunch’s place after TC got bought by AOL but we’ll see.
I personally don’t read too much of GigaOM but I’ve asked some loyal readers and from what they’ve said, GigaOM produces higher quality content as they do more research on new products and technologies.
They may not be breaking stories but they’re more analytical than TC. Shoo, if you have extra cash and want super in-depth data/research, why not subscribe to GigaOM Pro?
What’s $199 a year for quality research and analysis right? No? Well, they let you in on some snippets of it anyway… sometimes.
GigaOM does have significantly less pageviews than both Mashable and TechCrunch at 4 million uniques, but they do have a better business model than both of them.
This year, they’ve already raised a total of $14 million dollars in funding – more than both VentureBeat and Business Insider. That tells us a lot in terms of their future as a company.
There you have it! Three sites for the social media dork.
If you don’t like constantly checking these sites or getting a crapload of articles to read on your reader, then you can just go to Techmeme – a tech news aggregator that uses both algorithm and human editing to find the most popular stories.