This forum in Altcoin ANN section should have quite a lot of infos and more important quite a lot of links.
This page is useful with nice ranking considering development, community and public interest.
https://www.coingecko.com/en ofcourse everyone monitor alts on this page
https://coinmarketcap.com/Investing in altcoins is a full time job because of sole reason that there are so many and progress goes on so fast. Not to mention that many are there just to make profit for creators.
There are constantly some ICOs, Sort of a crowdfunding for crypto projects. With them you need to be super careful since are not crypto coins, but an asset. Product they will deliver is what makes worthiness to that asset. Most ICOs price usually sink under ICO price a week after hit exchanges and only a bit latter start grow over. So basically participating in ICOs is not that smart. But on other hand there was MELON ( i hope i posted right name) ICO that lasted only few minutes. Doubt those guys will sell their asset that cheap as they acquire it in the ICO.
Research Read Research Read Research Read.
On other hand there will be soon investment platforms where it will be easier for those that dont really care to invest in crypto. Platform managers will cut some not prospective project out. And will be easier to chose where to invest and more simple spread among many different projects. Question is when this will go live. ICONOMI should start in December, now we are March and I dont think they give final answer when will launch start.