Ask HN: What to read instead of Techcrunch? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What to read instead of Techcrunch?

51 pointsApocryphon33 comments

I'm interested in reading other tech blogs other than Techcrunch. I've checked out Epicenter, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb and InfoWorld. Which one of those would you say is the best compared to TC? What tech/startup news blogs are worth following?

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Hi I'm Paul Hontz and I run The Startup Foundry. I built TSF as a place where entrepreneurs could learn and grow from each other. Often times I will cover a hot startup that is still flying under the radar, conduct interviews with founders via Skype, or share advice.

We have some fantastic content lined up this week and I hope you'll check us out. We are obviously not a techcrunch clone, but I think that's a good thing :) Say "hi" in the comments if you decide you want to hang your hat at TSF for a while. All the best, Paul.

Edit: link http://thestartupfoundry.com

The site looks really slick and even yourself sound slick. I just couldn't get passed your nickname. I want to read the site even more now.

The nickname is just part of his charm.

Definitely have to recommend Paul and his site, TSF. I just signed up for the daily digest after seeing it on twitter a few times, and I'm enjoying it.

We haven't been able to get on there yet, but they provide a good form here: http://thestartupfoundry.com/tip-us/ , and a nice article on building up your press kit here: http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/03/18/make-your-startup-ri... .

Really good guys, doing some great work. Easy to recommend.

I just wanted to say thanks for a great new site! It has also been interesting to see its inception/creation via HN as you posted a few months ago to gather interest and initial content.

I'm pretty much disillusioned with all professional blogs; and by that I mean any blog where the writers are trying to build a business from it. I think Gruber pulls it off reasonably well at Daring Fireball simply because he's not greedy and he's only trying to support himself. But sites like TechCrunch have to sustain an amazing volume of content and visitors, and they can't rely on quality to keep the numbers up. Despite best efforts, they inevitably drift towards more fluff and sensationalism to drive pageviews.

It's not that the signal to noise ratio is very bad per se, but when I stack it up against my favorite blogs by individuals who I really respect, it dilutes the quality of my RSS reader considerably. Frankly, if anything is big enough news that I really need to know about it, it'll be on HN, and I can focus my attention on lesser known information that is probably a lot more valuable in the long run.

http://thestartupfoundry.com/

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That's weird, I find it mostly generic, content-less babbling ("3 lessons startups can learn from the infamous Gizmodo redesign"?, "You’re not entitled to anything. Hustle for everything you’re worth"?).

Hi Petervandijck,

Quite honestly we're still experimenting with content to see what works and what doesn't (TSF is only 2 months old). If our current batch of stories don't interest you, dig a little deeper and checkout some of the fantastic interviews with Andrew Warner, Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of Reddit) and Tim O'Reilly. Perhaps that would better suit your tastes.

I hope I can win you over, but no hard feelings if TSF isn't the place for you.

All the best, Paul

P.S. I'm always open to guest authors if you would like to contribute!

For me, the content would have to be specific. Interviews are good. Specific content is good. Generic "5 things startup founders have to know" just makes me want to kill myself. Maybe that's just me.

Good luck!

Yeah, first time going to the site. Reminds me of all the cosmo magazines at the grocery checkout stands, except this one is targeted at me.

http://www.techmeme.com/ is all you need.

Why downvote? I love techmeme too!

Doesn't count as a blog per se, but I'm publishing a book with 35+ interviews of younger startup founders. Think companies like AirBNB, foursquare, Reddit, Hipmunk, Grooveshark, Github, Weebly, etc. I think I spoke to mainly YC founders. If you liked Founders at Work, you'll like this one (although the two aren't affiliated). I'll post it on Hacker News when it's ready, hopefully sometime next weekend. I haven't talked to anyone about it yet, but mainly because I've been busy with it (much greater time commitment than I had anticipated).

just read HN...if its important it'll get voted up.

This way you can stop wasting time reading and start doing.

I hear you, but there are things that will never appear on HN that might be up your alley. I'm all for avoiding TechCrunch, but there are decent sites out there that are not pumping out constant garbage just to get page views.

you'll learn more by trying than you will by trying to pick up bits and pieces of "what works" from hundreds of different industries.

I'm less interested in what works than in what doesn't work and why it didn't work details.

While my own are certainly always very educational, I prefer to learn from the mistakes made by others. This due to the time and cost savings involved.

Just repeating mistakes is, well, boring.

And if it gets voted up at HN, it's usually a TechCrunch story.

http://thenextweb.com/ is pretty good for certain fields. http://mashable.com/ also covers similar topics.

I switched off TechCrunch with the thenextweb.com feed as my main tech source and HN for the rest.

Surprised no one's mentioned GigaOm (gigaom.com) yet, personally, I think they do the best job out of all the 'professional' blogs.

Although not tech news blogs, I find Chris Dixon (http://cdixon.org) and Mark Suster's (http://bothsidesofthetable.com/) blogs very insightful. You should also check out Suster's weekly video podcast, This Week in Venture Capital (http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-venture-capital/). Even better, imo, is Jason Calacanis' This Week in Startups (http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/).

Check out The Startup Project: http://www.startupproject.org/

Hey there! A couple of friends and I have started a blog Called The Startup Cafe. We're trying to make it a place where entrepreneurs can share their stories of success and or failure so that we all can learn a few lessons and hopefully not repeat past mistakes. Were only about 2 weeks old so Id love any feedback you can give. Thanks!

http://thestartupcafe.com

The Mises Daily (http://mises.org/daily/) is awesome. It is a welcome break to technical articles. It can get quite in depth though. The subject is interesting given the current economic climate, and this site has so much great content. Its not a light read, but well worth diving into.

>The subject is interesting given the current economic climate

You mean the one that's improving apace with expectations?

You may want to check out http://readwarp.com/startups. I worked on readwarp full-time for a year, gave up on it as a startup, demoted it to project, and still use it most days for my reading. These days I turn to it after I've gone through my can't-miss feeds on google reader.