Meerkat was everywhere last week. Well, everywhere except Boston, according to NextView's Rob Go:
There has been non-stop chatter about @AppMeerkat in my twitter feed among everyone but folks in Boston. Indicative of a big problem, IMHO
— Rob Go (@robgo) March 8, 2015
And by problem, I mean I worry about lack of early-adoption and experimentation with new social services locally
— Rob Go (@robgo) March 8, 2015
I'm going to try and write another post about my feelings on Rob's tweet, but the short version is something like this (and I agree that there was barely any chatter in Boston):
- I think we are expirimenting with new stuff here locally but we aren't as vocal about the things we're playing around with.
- 75% of my close friends don't care about tech & startups. I bet that number is much lower for those in Silicon Valley. Social services like Meerkat, Ello, etc. are only valuable if your friends are there.
That said, Rob's post inspired me to share a little cheat sheet for the people that want to learn more and experiment with new products. Here are the places I look and listen.
An Early Adopter's Toolkit
Read Techmeme
Techeme is one of the first things I read every day.
Techmeme is like ESPN for tech news. They pull in all of the important stories so you don't have -- except unlike ESPN they link to other people's stories and promote the best news, regardless of the source. Doesn't matter if it's from TechCrunch, PandoDaily or Re/code. If it's a significant story, it will be there.
Read Product Hunt
Every day, Product Hunt publishes a list of the best new products from that day. It might be an app, a new website or even a podcast. They also publish helpful "collections" in addition to the list of new products -- like tools for sales people or free design tools.
If you want to learn about new products, Product Hunt is the place to be. In fact, there's a shift happening. Startups used to worry about getting a big TechCrunch article on launch day -- now they want to be featured on Product Hunt.
Bonus: Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover is always talking about new products outside of the site. Follow him on Twitter.
Listen to This Week in Startups and the a16z podcast
Love him or hate him, Jason Calacanis puts on a great show. Every week, he posts two podcasts: a fireside chat-style interview on with a founder or investor on Tuesday and a news roundtable every Friday. Listen to both on your commute on those days.
Last spring, the team at Andreesen Horowitz got into the podcast game with the a16z podcast. They are great about posting timely podcasts givinvg their take on key events like an Apple announcement.
Subscribe to the Mattermark Daily
Mattermark is a research tool, but every day they send out an awesome list of the best startup links of that day. I like it because it's a great collection of blog posts from operators and investors, not so much news. If Mark Cuban wrote a great blog post that day, it would be included in the Mattermark Daily. If I could only pick one startup newsletter to subscribe to, it would be this one.
Bonus: Mattermark founder Danielle Morrill is usually tweeting with Ryan about those new products, so follow her. She's also a great writer on topics like VC, fundraising and tech trends.
Read Fred Wilson and Brad Feld's Blogs
Fred and Brad are two of the top tier VCs and they blog every single day about what is going on in their worlds. There area lot of good VC blogs out there these days, but these two are constantly trying and commenting on new products/trends.
Reddit and Hacker News
Some of the most engaged and vocal people in the tech world hang out on Reddit and Hacker News. If you're there, you'll quickly see what the trends are and what topics are catching people's attention. And I hear a lot of people say "I am afraid to post on Reddit - I dont want to get attacked by the trolls." While it's true that if you post something bad on Reddit, your life might be over, don't worry. You can treat Reddit like my Dad treats Twitter. Reads it every single day and has become his number one source of news, but doesn't tweet.
The One Common Trait? Curiosity
These tools are great and they will definitely help you find out about more interesting things as they pop up, but the number one thing that the early adopters that I know have in common is curiosity.
They don’t just download a new app, buy bitcoin or play around with 3D printing because people are talking about those things. They do it because they’re genuninely curious about how those things are made, how they can improve, and where they might lead in the future.
What else would you add here? How do you go about finding the latest and greatest in tech?
