Glossary
What is a beat?
A beat is one industry, read as a unit: a curated library of public podcasts, blogs and newsletters, YouTube shows and release feeds that Briefwire follows together, so a single brief can draw on all of them.
Updated 24 September 2026
Why read an industry as one unit?
Because the claim that matters rarely arrives in one place. A founder says it on a podcast, an engineer half-confirms it in a conference talk, and the release notes show when it shipped. Read separately, those are three items in three feeds. Read as one beat, they are one development with three receipts.
What is in a beat?
A curated library of public sources for that industry, of four kinds: podcasts, blogs and newsletters, YouTube shows, and release feeds and changelogs. Each source is fetched and checked before it is listed, and every beat’s sources are published by name, so you can see exactly which sources would be followed for you before you pay for anything.
When is a beat read?
Briefwire reads a beat’s sources through the day while a trial or paid account tracks it. A beat nobody tracks may not be read at all, and its page shows the library, not a live feed.
Which beats are there?
Every beat is listed on one page, and each has a page of its own that names every source in its library, grouped by medium. If your industry is not there, that list is the honest answer to whether the product covers it yet.