NICK DOUGLAS — The tech industry is huge and ungainly, but it's not impossible to get a grasp of its daily news. There are ways to deeply understand tech through hours of reading per day, but for the busy pro with only 20 minutes for tech news, use the following daily process.

Optional time-saver: Instead of reading the sources below by going to the different sites, consider reading the RSS fees on Google Reader or Bloglines.

1. Skim the headlines of these top news sources:
Digg: Technology (Ranked by most popular, so you can quit halfway down)
Techmeme (Same as above, but also note the recent stories in the right column)
GigaOM (Industry/business news)
Engadget (Gadget news)

2. Skim these sources for commentary:
Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed
Valleywag (Really — it's newsy now)
Techdirt

3. Read these mainstream sources:
CNET News
NY Times Technology
Financial Times

4. Once or twice a week, check in with these sources:
BusinessWeek
Wired News
Wired Magazine

5. Once a week, listen to this podcast during your commute: This Week in Tech

During your daily skimming, pick one to three news stories and one to three commentaries to read all the way through. If a story starts boring you, quit it — all the good info was in the first paragraph, and you'll only retain what interests you.

The beauty of this collection is that between the blogs, aggregators, and mainstream news you'll cover most every story. Techmeme is particularly good at collecting news from myriad sources, which will help if you find time to read more.

Diggers: You may also want to read How to be a jerk about Web 2.0.

Update: Karl Martino suggests you save 15 of those minutes by visiting PopURLs and Original Signal. You could also plug your own set of feeds into Netvibes for the same effect.

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