Ask HN: What's a better way to digest regular/tech news?

8 points by coned88 10 years ago | 9 comments

You can read HN/reddit/others and see news others think is good. There are many services and apps like Flipboard which try and find the best news for you. Then we can just stick to one or a few news sources and go with that or possibly use RSS where you just become so overwhelmed you stop reading it.

Sometimes I see stuff on facebook news that I don't see on reddit. HN is mostly tech. Apps like Flipboard and Smartnews, while nice tend to gravitate to buzzfeed and businessinsider articles. Google and Yahoo news aren't much different. In fact the google news android app can leave you in the dark on some events and you wouldn't even know it. RSS is just too much to keep up with. Specific news sources like the NYT tend to be too broad.

There's an app named Flipboard Briefing which is actually decent but regular Flipboard just has too much content. Briefing has too little.

Is there a better way? There must be. I should say I am mostly interested in big events and tech news.

AndreyErmakov 10 years ago |

What you should really be doing is finding a way to consume as little news as possible, only picking up what really matters. Most of it is useless. Even HN has an inordinate amount of stuff that's either clearly political or local US news which I don't care about, that's why I generally don't follow the news page.

The AskHN is however a source of good discussions which can often provide you with new and useful insights into things.

The must read on the subject:

http://dobelli.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Par...

selmat 10 years ago | |

Same here. I don't watch TV, read news, listen radio. HN seems to be faster then most of commercial news. Especially in comparison with "popular news" my country. There are at least 2-3 days delay with "non-breaking" news and few hours with "breaking" news.

Last but not least, as you and posted articles confirmed, most of public news are useless. They are just copied from one source and have no information value for my life or better decisions. For me, AskHN category and comments from most people here is more valuable source of information.

ericzawo 10 years ago |

I'm trying to find a way to discover this myself -- as a former journalist/journalism major, I can be best described as a news junkie.

I use Pocket to save longreads for my daily commute/downtime and it has proven to be the best way to catch up on things for me between devices. I know there are similar apps, I've just been using this one forever.

I try to follow journalists and writers I admire on Twitter, especially ones who err on the side of sharing news items/pieces worth reading, rather than devolve into the mudslinging that is trendy amongst writers #onthere.

I have only been reading HN for the past year but as a newbie to tech it has proven invaluable, and there's plenty of political/financial news that pops up now and then to at least keep me semi-coherent amongst colleagues and what is going on at work.

I find generally speaking the news to be really damaging to my mental psyche. Especially when I was in a newsroom at my previous job, it was not exactly a happy place to be reminded about every - single - mass shooting - and terrorist attack - and bad move by governments - daily, and eventually you either become completely numb to it or let it get to you. The latter happened to me, and other contributing factors led me to really question my involvement in media going forward. I'm definitely still addicted to my Twitter timeline, but I've found that, too, no longer makes me feel good, and am taking steps to only check it once or twice a day.

tmaly 10 years ago |

I really like using email newsletters, specifically the ones that aggregate items. You can usually find very specific ones, but there are also general ones.

These get sent out weekly, so you do not have to worry about missing the big items in that specialization.

wallflower 10 years ago | |

Do you have any favorites or recommendations? I love iOS Dev weekly (https://iosdevweekly.com)

tmaly 10 years ago | | |

There is a Postgresql weekly, a web operations one, and a Go one. You can find them all off of http://golangweekly.com/

RepressedEmu 10 years ago |

My friend and I are currently working on an app called Krux that aims to resolve this problem. We found that in most news stories fifty percent or more of it can be fluff/intro/unimportant so we built a summary algorithm to cut the articles down. The app harvests the news from a growing list of RSS feeds and then summarizes them to 4 sentences for quick consumption. We plan on launching with Tech, Business, Politics, and Culture sections so you can follow only what you're most interested in keeping up with. We think it will be a good way to stay on top of fast moving industries and keep informed of the top events.

Mimu 10 years ago |

I never understood people's issue with news. I don't read any newspapers, I don't read any news-sites, I literally read titles of /r/worldsnews (knowing that most of them are clickbaits, but still) and that's it.

I don't think I'm missing anything, the relevant news come to you one way or another. Yes you'll have it like a day later but who cares? In the meantime you are free to do stuff.

brudgers 10 years ago |

For general news, I'm a fan of a paper subscription to The Economist. There is little general news where a week between issues makes a difference, but it does make a difference in reporting.