How to Use Tech to Stay Ahead in the IT Industry

For the people who work within it, as well as curious outsiders, the IT industry can seem like it’s changing every day. That’s especially true as new developments hit the news, and analysts discuss the technologies they think might be on the horizon.

If IT is your livelihood, staying abreast of the latest happenings is essential. The problem is, scrolling through news headlines can get tedious.

Before long, your plan to spend just 10 minutes seeing what’s recently happened in the world of technology can turn into an hour. That time ends up being wasted, too, because it’s largely spent trying to find worthy articles instead of actually reading them.

Fortunately, there are several ways to avoid this common scenario. Not surprisingly, these possibilities rely on technology itself to efficiently give you the tech news that matters most. To stay on top of tech news without wasting time, check out these resources:

Tech News Tube

This is a website that also has apps for the iPhone and iPad. The beauty of Tech News Tube is it compiles information from over 30 leading tech news sources like Mashable, Tech Crunch and The Verge.

Even better, there’s a star ranking system where you can see, at a glance, whether an article is worth your time. The more stars an article has beside its title, the more readership or comments it has gotten. Certain star colors mean a story has recently broken, or it’s getting a lot of attention in a short amount of time.

Inside

When you’ve reached a point where you’re fed up with selecting the “read more” link of a tech news story that seems interesting only to be let down by a lack of relevant content, the Inside app is for you.

Founded by entrepreneur Jason Calcanis, the app will deliver over 1,000 of the top stories every day. However, it’s filled with what the founder calls “human-curated” content. That means all of it has been checked to make sure it’s really newsworthy.

Take note, this isn’t exclusively a tech news app, so when you download Inside, it’ll be necessary to indicate preferences about the topics you most want to see. There are thousands of topic choices that are used to drive content for a personalized news feed.

Each news story is accompanied by a 300-character description that includes up to eight pertinent facts. That concise description should help you make a well-informed decision on whether a story deserves a more in-depth look, or you’re better off looking for something more valuable.

Appy Geek

Billed as the top technology news app, Appy Geek draws from hundreds of licensed news sources. It also offers over 10 regional editions, so whether you want tech news from China, Mexico or the United States, the app has you covered. There’s also an “international” region option, which brings headlines from around the globe.

One perk of this app that’s useful and timesaving is if you regularly read articles about certain topics more often than others, Appy Geek will pick up on the habit and show you those topics more frequently.

The app also has a trademarked “Tag Nav” system that allows you to quickly explore related topics. Then, it’s easy to broaden or deepen your knowledge without having to spend too much time sifting through a lot of extraneous content.

Pocket

This is an extension that’s available for all major browsers. Once you find news online that you’d like to read later, Pocket saves the content for you. Pocket even integrates with more than 1,000 apps, in case you find a story you can’t pass up through an app.

Once you save something to Pocket, it’ll also be available to read on any other devices you’ve synced, such as a tablet. You don’t even need an Internet connection to access the content later. That’s good if you love to catch up on tech news during a long subway commute to or from the office.

Hopefully these handy helpers will prove it’s not only possible, but also perhaps even simple, to keep tabs on the emerging tech topics you deem most terrific.

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