If you’re anything like me, you subscribe to newsletters. Lots of newsletters. Like, too many newsletters. I can’t help myself. When done right, newsletters are an excellent form of content curation that can help deliver interesting and insightful information to you with minimal effort on your part. Lucky for us, data newsletters are no exception to this rule.

In this post, I’ll outline why I think newsletters are such an awesome tool for continued growth in data science. More importantly, I’ll lay out the data science and AI-focused newsletters that I look forward to most throughout the week.

Why Newsletters?

Looking back on when I started out in data science, one of the first and most valuable things that I did was seek out tons of data newsletters. This forced me to stay on top of the latest news in the ever-changing realm of data science.

It helped me learn techniques and technologies, introduced me to new concepts and learning resources that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise and notified me when it came to networking opportunities, public tech talks, and job openings. Most importantly, it did this on a weekly basis.

Consistently delivered content curation is invaluable in our current world of clickbait titles and fake news. The amount of information out there is overwhelming. Newsletters help solve this problem by differentiating between signal and noise for you. Why take the time to weed through thousands of posts and find the best ones when others will gladly do it for you?

The following collection of newsletters is a perfect example of this. Ranging from data science to machine learning to artificial intelligence, the links delivered by these content curators can serve as a game changer when it comes to your continued growth as a data scientist.

So let’s get onto the list, in no particular order.

The List

Data Science Weekly

Data Science Weekly is definitely a fan-favorite, and for good reason. The newsletter started in 2013 and has pumped out 276 consistent issues since. It starts off with an Editor Picks section and quickly moves onto listing a bunch of data science articles and videos. Furthermore, it includes a section for job openings, tutorials, and books as well. Sent every Thursday, this one is well worth your time. Check out a recent issue.

O’Reilly Data Newsletter

You have probably heard of O’Reilly Media in one way or another. Personally, I have a collection of their books sitting on my desk at all times. They also publish ebooks, host conferences, and offer other learning solutions. Their data-focused newsletter delivers 10 links each week that range from news to tutorials to white-papers.

Data Elixir

Data Elixir takes a similar approach, breaking things down into a wide-ranging collection of weekly news, insights, tools & techniques, resources, and data visualization. The newsletter goes out to over 29,000 subscribers and is delivered every Tuesday. Check out a recent issue.

Data Machina

Data Machina is a more technical newsletter that breaks down links by technology, hitting on topics from R to blockchain to algorithms. There’s really a little bit of everything here. I subscribe to the free version, sent every two weeks but it looks like you can pay to receive the newsletter every week if you would like. Check out a recent issue.

The Analytics Dispatch

Mode offers a number of enterprise data solutions, but they also put out a pretty good data newsletter every week. They primarily focus on articles that catch their eye around the community but also include a section for featured data jobs as well. Check out a recent issue.

Machine Learnings

As you might have guessed, Machine Learnings focuses on ML and AI news primarily. I particularly enjoy the Awesome and Not Awesome sections that give bite-sized news if you’re in a rush. Others seem to like it as well, as the newsletter boasts 40,000+ subscribers. Check out a recent issue.

The Data Science Roundup

Another newsletter that has been around for some time, The Data Science Roundup has 177 published issues and over 7,000 subscribers to date. This newsletter takes a more concise approach, offering 5 or so links each week with an insightful reflection written on each article. Check out a recent issue.

Hacker News Digest

Not a data science newsletter per se, but a valuable resource nonetheless. Like most people in tech, I love Hacker News. However, I had a hard time keeping up with it, until I found this. You can dictate the frequency and amount of links that are sent to you based on the number of upvotes on each post.

Kaggle Newsletter

This newsletter contains any recent blog posts, interviews, or news regarding Kaggle, everyone’s favorite machine learning competition site. It also includes links, resources, meetups, and job openings around the community. I couldn’t find a subscribe link for this one, pretty sure Kaggle automatically subscribes you when you make an account.

Stratechery: The Daily Update

Stratechery’s Daily Update is a little different than the others in that it’s a paid, daily membership. Not a traditional data science newsletter, these reports focus on tech strategy think-pieces. It’ll run you around $10/month, a little less if you pay yearly. This is one of the few places where I gladly pay for written content, Medium being the other. There’s also plenty of free essays available on the site. Check out this post and others to get a feel for it.

Import AI

Import AI leans heavily on technical machine learning and AI resources, often white-papers and recent research results. The issues also include an impressive amount of analysis. Even if none of that is your thing, make sure to read the Tech Tales section at the end for an always-interesting futuristic story. Check out a recent issue.

The Wild Week in AI

Similar to Import AI, this newsletter covers technical machine learning and AI tutorials, projects, research papers, and news. Delivered a bit sporadically, The Wild Week in AI has over 17,000 subscribers if that’s any indication of the content. Check out a recent issue.

Data Is Plural

Data Is Plural is delivered weekly, focusing solely on interesting datasets for you to explore or use in your next side-project. There’s also a pretty awesome Google doc that serves as the archive for all these datasets dating back to 2015. Check out a recent issue.

TDS Weekly Selection

Last but not least, the team at Towards Data Science puts out both weekly and monthly digests of the most popular posts on the publication. You can receive these emails by accepting Letters from TDS if you go to the dropdown found on their homepage. Check out a recent issue.

Wrapping Up

That brings our list to an end, for now at least. I’ll be on the lookout for more worthwhile data science newsletters out there. Feel free to light up the comments section with other must-have data newsletters out there that I may have missed.

I know that these newsletters helped me immensely during my journey to data scientist and continue to help me grow and improve today. I hope they can provide you with some value as well.

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