News Makers vs News Papers – How to be the first to know what’s new or the latest trends, etc..? I had been thinking of writing this post of a while now but it gave me all the more reasons to do it as one of the followers on Twitter asked for some help in searching Google to keep up with the latest in the tech industry. Guess what! Google search alone won’t help much in this case..

This article will discuss various techniques you can use to be the first to know of what’s happening online.

I follow a theory I call, News Makers vs. News Papers to bring the latest on TNerd.com. News Papers are the ones which gather information from influential blogs and write about it with some added information. News Makers are the ones which offer the latest information in its own niche, which turns them into an influential blog. 

Being a bloggers it’s really important to be the first or at least one of the first to know and report when a new software is launched, product leaks, feature updates, insider news, etc.. This way the blog will be quickly noticed, gain back-links, viewership, traffic, credibility, etc.

Here is a list of things you can do to be a News Maker:

Organize Feeds into News Makers and News Papers:

Put up a feeds page for yourself, use iGoogle or Google Reader or any feeds service which works for you. Categorize the feeds in to two categories, 1) News Makers, 2) News Papers.

Add all the Company Blogs, Product Blogs, Influential blogs, etc.. to News Makers and rest in News Papers. I have been using iGoogle so far, but I will start using Google Reader going forward. Google Reader does not allow you to create subfolders; instead use the naming conventions to your advantage. For example all the blogs feeds related to Design and Graphics start with “Design – XYZ” or “Design – ABC”. This way it’s easier to browse through and keeps you in control of the feeds.

Google Alerts:

This is one of the fastest ways of getting the information from around the web without subscribing to any feed or sites information. Just add the keywords based on which Google will send you Alerts in your e-mail. If you want the latest information then set “How often:” field to “as-it-happens” to get the information as Google finds it.

Digg.com (Upcoming Section)

Digg.com is the hub of information and also, spam to some extent. You can find some interesting stuff at http://digg.com/all/upcoming/ or http://digg.com/all/upcoming/recommended look through the recent diggs and you might find some latest news or something.

Slashdot.org  (Firehose)

Firehose at Slashdot is a good source of information. Just set the filter to show the latest and even the least popular stories. Here you can find a few original and unique stories which you can build your article on.

New Release’s:

For latest software launches, go to sites like Downloads.com or SoftPedia.com and dwell into their “New Release” section. You will surely find something here to write about.

Among all the points listed above I find, Feeds and Alerts to be a good resource of information and very useful.

I hope this helps.

Image Source: Jim_Gr