Top IT News Picks of New York Tech
Originally posted on Flack’s Revenge
Someone posted the question “HELP! What are the top sites where you get IT 
news?” on the NY Tech Meetup mailing list last week. This prompted a frenzied exchange of emails. I chimed in, and followed the conversation with great interest.
Why is it at all interesting what a few NYTM members think about IT news? First, I find it challenging to get any useful feedback along these lines – and this can be frustrating for someone whose job is to get clients PR results. When I ask what people read, and how they get their tech news, I often get shrugs and blank looks (probably because they are getting news from social media, where the original source can be obscured). So it is a step forward when people loudly and passionately name their choices.
Also, the NYTM crowd is a nice microcosm of the tech startup world as it includes programmers, project managers, CTOs, entrepreneurs and investors in NYC, a hot bed of innovation second only to Silicon Valley. They’re great folks to ask about this.
The Thread
The fun started when, Gartner Webinars Host Nancy Northrop emailed:
So, my boss just asked me to come up with a top 10 list of websites where IT people get their news and info. Can you help me out? Where do YOU get your news?
I was one of the first to reply:
Happy to help but need more info – by “IT news” do you mean B2B, enterprise IT?
There are tons of blogs and sites for IT tech and many good ones – some like TechCrunch cover startup and Silicon Valley news – others cover specific segments like big data, ad tech, fin tech, IT strategy (like CIO), etc.
Others cover developer topics and others, still, the data center, cloud, OSS, etc.
As the responses started coming in, she explained further:
I would say large and enterprise IT. CIOs, CTOs, CDOs and other leaders (or future leaders). Can be B2B or B2C. What these people add to their Flipboard/check daily, etc. Thanks everyone! Getting really good ideas.
TechCrunch, or not TechCrunch?
Back in the day we used to joke that every startup just wanted to be in the Wall Street Journal. These days, TechCrunch stands out as the top pick. So I was curious to read the thoughts here. Of course, I called TC out in my initial response.
There were mixed opinions. One person wrote: TechCrunch.com the one and only.
To this, another replied: First off, I wouldn’t have a single source of tech news as “my one and only”, and especially not TechCrunch.
Popular Picks
There were only a small number of names consistently cited:
- TechCrunch
- CIO Magazine
- The Verge
- Stack Overflow
- Hacker News
- Network World
The top picks were otherwise all over the place. The next section has examples.
The Lists
I checked with each person for permission to report their top choices; the unnamed ones below could not be reached or requested anonymity.
Anonymous (Instructional Technology Specialist)
- Wired News
- Mashable
- CIO Magazine
- CNET News
- CNET Reviews
- Computerworld
- DMNews.com
- E-Commerce Times
- Information Week
- InfoWorld
- Network Computing
- NetworkWorld
- RCR Wireless News
- SearchITChannel.com
- SiliconValley.com
- Sys-Con Italia
- Tech Republic
- Techzone360
- TMC Net
Miles Rose (of SiliconAlley.com fame)
- Stackoverflow
- Ars technica
- Quora
- Check Apple News and see what comes up under IT
Guillermo Garcia (founder of Vinter.tv)
- The Verge (nicest to read, the one I start with)
- Crunchbase (acquisitions, investment rounds…)
- Techcrunch
- Hacker News
- Some Reddit channels
- Stack Overflow (coding wouldn’t be what it is without this)
- Venture Beat
Anonymous (developer)
- Hacker News (but not nearly as much as Reddit)
- Network World
- The Register aka “El Reg”
- BBC
- xda-developers
- Drupal.org and Planet Drupal
- Boy Genius Report
- To a lesser extent newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal
- A whole bunch of people on YouTube including
Niche News
A couple of emailers cited Apple and Android-related blogs, like MacSurfer, and a digital media workflow engineer highlighted the importance of security tech: A lot of what enterprise IT needs is SECURITY. I didn’t see anything specifically addressing how enterprises can keep up with appropriate countermeasures. My goto is the Content Security and Security Association (CSDA) and their Cyber Security News…
Influencers
Influencers can guide you to the important news items, and sometimes also produce editorial content.
Edward Potter shared the names and Twitter tags of the following, and wrote
..Can branch off to their followers. Not where you’ll find a review of new routers, more like what life will be like in 2750, tech focused. 🙂 The 1000 mile high view people:
- Kevin Kelly
- Douglass Rushkoff
- Andreessen Horowitz is a tech VC firm that invests in software eating the world
Non-news News
Many mistakenly throw other types of sites into the “IT news ” mix. For example, one emailer mentioned a vendor site (Cyware). Another cited Twitter as his primary online news source. Yet another called out this type of misunderstanding:
…although they’re definitely useful in other ways, I personally wouldn’t consider StackOverflow or Quora as a “source for tech news”. They’re sources for tech answers
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