Twitter. The resource of our dreams. An endless supply of intelligent, relevant and pithy opinions and up-to-date news. And thousands of posts about cats, someone’s lunchtime sandwich choice and people moaning about the weather, endlessly cluttering up your Twitter stream with noise that you’d really rather wasn’t there.
Twitter of course has functions to help you create lists of people you really want to follow, which makes the fog clear a little, but how do you know who to follow? The most-often provided advice is to “follow those you admire”, but who on earth are they and where do they lurk?
Here we provide a starter pack of essential Twitter feeds to follow. Add these to your lists and see which of them provide you with your daily dose of inspiration. Then follow their followers. Then the followers of their followers. And then…oh, you get the picture.
TheNextWeb
International feed of news on technology, culture and business. Short, snappy and to the point.
Follow them @TheNextWeb
WonderHowTo
Don’t know how to do something? Maybe WonderHowTo can help you. A huge array of “how to” articles and very easy to spend hours inside.
Follow them @WonderHowTo
Paul Irish
International guru of all things web-dev, father of HTML5, expert front-ender and doesn’t like bands.
Follow him @paul_irish
Wired UK
UK-centric variant of the US publication, reporting tech-focused news and articles. Great as a one-stop-to-catch-up.
Follow them @WiredUK
Sarah Lacy
Great tech writing and an essential read. Simple.
Follow her at @sarahcuda
Smashing Magazine
Follow the views and reports of Vitaly Friedman, editor-in-chief for Smashing Magazine, a wonderful tech- and dev- focused online magazine.
Follow them @smashingmag
ReadWriteWeb
Social media, general web and technology news, reviews, opinions and long-form articles.
Follow them @RWW
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten
Boris runs Next Web conference and blog
Focusing on tech entrepreneurs the blog is a great resource for app review, tech news and opinions.
Follow him at @boris
A List Apart
If you build websites or specialize in front-end code, then ALA is a great resource to help you understand what modern techniques you should be aware of and how to implement them. Well-written copy and currently one of the best places to go to learn about responsive design.
Follow them @alistapart
.Net Magazine
The Twitter stream of the world’s “bets selling magazine for web designers and developers”. Lots of hints and tips for both designers and coders alike.
Follow them @netmag
John Resig
The creator of jQuery and all-round master of JavaScript. Useful to see what he is reading and commenting on, but filter out his personal life events.
Follow him @jeresig
Jack Dorsey
The man behind both Twitter and Square. You can’t use Twitter without following @jack. It’s the law.
Follow him @jack
Eric A. Meyer
Well-known developer and advocate of web-standards. Follow him to keep up-to-date with xHTML, CSS, microformats and what web-standards should mean.
Follow him @meyerweb
Harry McCracken
Harry McCracken is TIME’s rather witty and insightful tech columnist. Lots of valuable snippets here.
Follow him at @harrymccracken
Jeff Atwood
From the founder of StackOverflow an opionated and humorous take on the technology news of the day.
Follow him @codinghorror
Mashable
News, tips and resources for the connected generation. Everything from video games, to hardware reviews to time-lapse photography.
Follow them @mashable
Peter Rojas
Founder of Gizmodo, Engadget and now gdgt, Peter always seems to have a crystal ball for the future tech trends.
Follow him at @peterrojas
TechCrunch
News and opinions on all tech-related matters, from social media through to hardware and APIs.
Follow them @TechCrunch
David Pogue
David Pogue, New York Times writer, gadget geek and TV-friendly tech god. Witty and rapid-fire tweets on all things geek.
Follow him at @pogue
Ben Parr
Ben Parr is a co-editor of Mashable one of the biggest tech blogs on the web. In addition to the Mashable articles he posts links to, he provides his own personal views and opinions on other articles and tech happenings.
Follow him at @benparr
Andrew Chen
Andrew Chen is a serial entrepreneur who writes a great metrics-focused blog on startup success tips. Lots of insights and a simple way to keep up with the current pulse of Silicon Valley.
Follow him at @andrewchen
Jason Fried
The founder and creator of 37Signals and co-author of REWORK presents an eclectic mix of news, views and reviews on tech, social and business issues.
Follow him @jasonfried
Tim Bradshaw
Tim Bradshaw is the Financial Times’ digital media correspondent. A European-centric blast of media and technical news in a well-written style.
Follow him at @tim
Jackie Cohen
Jackie is the Editor of the blog All Facebook and writes an enormous amount of news and tips about the social network.
Follow her at @AllFacebook
Joshua Topolsky
Joshua Topolsky was the editor in chief of Engadget for almost three years and is known for his frank reviews an opinions on tech and gadgets.
Follow him at @joshuatopolsky
John Gruber of Daring Fireball
John Gruber is the Apple fanatic running DaringFireball.net. If you want Apple news, reviews or rumours, then follow him. He also comments very frequently on general tech news and he’s a great source of pre-aggregated articles.
Follow him at @gruber
Horace Dediu
Horace is a technology analyst who writes exceptionally well and has an industry-stats focus. Follow him or miss out.
Follow him at @asymco
Matt Buchanan
Matt is Gizmodo’s managing editor writing reviews and news on the latest tech gear including mobiles and tablets.
Follow him at @mattbuchanan
Charlie White
Charlie is a senior editor at Mashable where he writes an awful lot specifically about mobile. If you have an interest in mobile and mobile gadgets, follow him.
Follow him at @charlie_white
Kara Swisher
Kara runs the tech news site AllThingsD and is incredibly vocal in her opinions. So if you want the tech news told how it should be, follow her.
Follow her at @karaswisher
Kevin Rose
Kevin Rose is the founder of Digg. Say no more.
Follow him at @kevinrose
