Spreading Ideas

It is no secret that I love TED talks. This one struck me as as interesting as things like kickstarter, social funding and blogs are at the front of our media. I know that I am more influenced by the web than any other media at this point. I also think of myself as an early adopter of technology and am always on the lookout for new things and am not afraid to take a risk. So I ask you this, how are you influenced? what sources do you trust? Are you more willing to talk about about something that you had a good experience with or a bad experience? For all of my projects and endeavors I would rather have an inverse Gaussian result where it would either be a stellar success or spectacular failure, as the middle is never fun.