Right now I'm in the process of bootstrapping a start-up, so I and my co-founder are working pretty long hours. My only source of new information seems to be Hacker News at the moment, but honestly, besides the thirty minutes I have when going to bed and before falling asleep, I don't wanna spend unnecessary time browsing the web when I could be working. 30 minutes aren't nearly enough to process a day's worth of new information anyway (especially when I have over ~15-20 subscribed blogs in Google Reader I consider ESSENTIAL, that is, after cutting the number down from 40-50 or so).
So recently I was day-dreaming about how when we get rich and famous :), we would hire a dedicated data-mining guy - they would do everything from reading all those blogs, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube presentations, keeping an eye on financial & business outlets, looking for cool new inventions, exploring new markets opportunities etc. Then at the end of the day, they would do a short presentation about the hot topics of the day, focusing on what might benefit the company in the short and long runs, and send out a mail containing a short write-up, their thoughts and 2 to 3 links AT MOST that they consider important enough to be read / watched in their entirety (obviously not a job for everyone - they should be intimately familiar with the company's technology and owners' philosophy in order to be able to filter out the relevant topics). Coming to think of it, we'd need 2 or 3 of those bad guys :)
Has anyone actually hired someone with a similar task set? Would you if your budget allowed for it?
