The O'Reilly Radar Blog: Technology's Crystal Ball Now Comes With RSS

In April of 2003, I attended my first O'Reilly Etech Conference and was blown away by a talk Tim O'Reilly gave called "O'Reilly's Radar?" The talk was essentially a review of the really cool stuff Tim had learned about courtesy of the alpha geeks with whom he spends his time. As a result of that talk, I wrote a blog post that concluded:

This idea of the alpha geek as a leading indicator is an interesting one and certainly one that many of us in the venture industry leverage. Smart VCs know better than to think that they are the alpha geeks -- they turn to others who live and breath a particular technology to help them reasonably assess potential developments in that field. VCs also look to alpha geeks to introduce them to interesting new companies in that individual's area of expertise. So if you're starting a company and want a fast track to funding, one of the most highly leveraged things you can do is get endorsed by the leading alpha geek in your field.

"O'Reilly's Radar" has since become a much-anticipated part of each of O'Reilly's Etech conferences. Tim has a great eye for interesting technologies and "O'Reilly's Radar" is a fantastic opportunity to see into Tim's crystal ball.

Given all that, I was thrilled to see the lanch of the O'Reilly Radar blog. Like Tim's Etech talks, the Radar blog will "draw from the wisdom of the alpha geeks, amplify the weak signals, draw out effective design patterns, iterate, and see if [it] can predict the next Mosaic, P2P, or Amazon." It is written by Tim O'Reilly, Rael Dornfest (O'Reilly's CTO), Marc Hedlund (O'Reilly's EIR) and Nat Torkington (O'Reilly editor and banjo player), all of whom are not only "wicked smart" (as they would say in my New Hampshire home town) but also great writers. It is a fantastic read and invaluable to entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist alike.