[WEB4LIB] Re: need technology news not business news

[Shirl Kennedy]

OK, now thst I'm back from my yoga class and have ingested a grilled chicken
wrap, I'm all mellow-like and ready to tackle this topic.

I work for...gasp...Business 2.0 (hi Rich!), and I'm responsible -- in one
way or another -- for most of the technology-related content that's on our
website.  That includes the Technology section of our Web Guide
(http://www.business2.com/webguide/0,,125|125|0|0|1|a,00.html?ref=wghp10)
and all the related industry topics like Computer & Internet
(http://www.business2.com/webguide/0,1660,157|102|0|0|1|a,FF.html),
Electronics
(http://www.business2.com/webguide/0,1660,245|102|0|0|1|a,FF.html) and
Telecommunications
(http://www.business2.com/webguide/0,1660,259|102|0|0|1|a,FF.html).  Due to
a quirk of fate, I'm also responsible for the Music Industry
(http://www.business2.com/webguide/0,1660,381|102|0|0|1|a,00.html)/

I supply background/research material for our weekly Wireless Report
(http://www.business2.com/archives/0,1661,2187|1,00.html?cid=2187), and I am
also the behind-the-scenes person for what appears in our daily Site Unseen
feature (http://www.business2.com/archives/0,1661,1479|1,00.html?cid=1479).

What all of this means is that at least half my job -- more, when I'm
dealing with something particularly obscure -- is deovted to keeping up with
technology news.  This I do through a variety of conventional and a few
non-conventional methods.

Like it or not, in this day and age, technology is very much driven by
money.  If there's no potential payoff for developing a given technology,
research will not be funded.  Particularly in this jittery economic climate.
For better or for worse, technology and (sigh) business are joined at the
hip.  It's very efficient to follow technological developments through
business news; after awhile, you get very good at reading between the lines.

To wit: The person who handles the financial sections of our website tracks,
on a daily basis, something called Venture Wire
(http://www.venturewire.net/).  This is a free daily e-mail newsletter
covering new money, new deals, new people, M&A, VC fund news, and VC
personnel moves. Whenever she runs across a technology-oriented company
that's just gotten a substantial chunk of funding from some entity, she
passes the news on to me.  I poke around and see what's what, on the
assumption that if someone was impressed enough with the company to ante up
big-time investment dollars, there's probably something significant there --
more efficient storage technologies, a way of squeezing more juice out of a
particular slice of the wireless spectrum, a cheaper way of manufacturing
semiconductors, a bandwidth tweak that improves the quality of voice over
IP, etc.

For wireless news, I have a whole list of sources I check regularly
(http://www.business2.com/webguide/0,1660,35540|125|0|0|1|a,00.html)/  I pay
particular attention to developments in Europe and Asia, since they're much
farther along the curve than we are here in the U.S.  The Economist
(http://www.economist.com/), Financial Times (http://news.ft.com/home/rw/)
and and Far Eastern Economic Review (http://www.feer.com/) are a few sources
I find helpful.

When I step back and look at the number and variety of sources I either skim
or read cover-to-cover, I'm kind of stunned at how much ground I actually
cover in the course of a typical month.  FWIW, folks, here's a list (in no
particular order):

Scientific American
Technology Review
Industry Standard
Red Herring
Fast Company
InfoWorld
Internet Week
Interactive Week
Computerworld
PC Magazine
PC World
ZD Smart Business
Network World
CIO
Information Week
Inc.
Fortune
Forbes
Business Week
New York Times
Wall Street Journal
Server/Workstation Expert
Family PC
Darwin
Information Outlook (from SLA)
Information Today
Computers in Libraries
Linux Journal
Mobile Computing
Yahoo! Internet Life
Upside
Wired

Most of these, of course, can be found online as well as in hard copy,
although with some of them, you can't access all of the content.  (A quick
search should turn up the URLs; if you're stymied, please drop me a note.)
Additionally, I follow a vast array of online-only sources -- Scout Report,
Netsurfer Digest (there's also a science version), What's Neat & New, Genie
Tyburski's TVC Alert, Woody's Watch (Windows, Office, Palm, Access...),
Lockergnome, Slashdot, CNET, Naked PC News, SitePoint Tribune, Tomalek's
Realm, a few other law-related and e-business zines,
SearchDay/SearchEngineWatch, Tara Calishain's Research Buzz, Gary Price's
Virtual Acquisition Shelf and News Desk, Romenesko's Media News, a few other
online media/news zines...

Obviously, I don't read every word in every one of these publications, in
electronic or dead-tree format.  But perusing a wide range of resources
gives me a very good feel for what's hot, what's cooling off and what's
beginning to poke its head up over the horizon.

So, FWIW, that's how I do technology news.


Shirl Kennedy
Web Guide Topic Manager
Business 2.0
The best business and technology sites, handpicked by research experts:
http://www.business2.com/webguide/