Startup digest is smart because it just sends out lists of events. While it does take some effort to do the research to find these events, it seems like it would be easier to put together than a full fledged magazine like most of these newsletters are ( thrillist, dailycandy, etc ).
It could be expanded to other niches: wine festivals in your city, folk concerts in your city, etc
Ive been trying to brainstorm other newsletter ideas that could be built without a huge time investment every day to produce the newsletter.
Some I've thought of: - 'Techmeme' newsletter. Build a 'techmeme' for beekeepers or some other niche and send out the links to the best stories & blog posts on beekeeping in a weekly digest post.
- some deal newsletters could also be mostly automated with scraping