What do you think came first, newspapers or newsletters?
Why do I ask? Not to establish which one’s better but to highlight that newsletters are the oldest and latest medium of knowledge distribution.
Newsletters started in ancient Rome as hand-written pieces of information for a group of people, which were later transformed into newspapers for a wider audience.
The culture of curating knowledge for a specific interest group is still popular in both offline and online media—be it via a Sunday magazine of a newspaper or Brain Picking’s free Sunday edition.
One thing common between both newspapers and newsletters is that it helps you tune into your day’s work. It triggers the mind with fresh ideas plus, the act of reading helps set your focus.
As working professionals in the data universe, our work demands us to not just stay aware of what’s happening in the ecosystem but also keep adding new tools and techniques to our knowledge base.
Besides, it’s not just the invention of cutting-edge technology in AI that intrigues us but the applications in business and lives of humans, agreed?
So, where does one find such information on a regular basis? 🤔
Especially now—the age of information overload? Well, that’s where newsletters come to our rescue!
Subscribing to a data science newsletter delivering curated information right to your inbox on a daily or weekly basis is a great starting point. To narrow down your search, here’s a list of top 10 newsletters to follow.
P.S. If you stick with us until the end, we’ve got two out of the box, surprise mentions! 🤩
In Today’s News
TLDR
TLDR is a daily newsletter that is popular for its byte-sized information about tech, science, and coding.
Managed by a tech enthusiast Dan Li, this newsletter is a must for any data science enthusiast. Li divides the newsletter into clear sections like:
- Daily updates
- Big Tech & Startups
- Science & futuristic technologies
- Programming Design & data science
The best part about this newsletter is the brief and succinct summary given below each story link. Check out the latest issue here and subscribe here.
CB Insights
This newsletter can be your go-to email for all the latest news on:
- Technology trends
- Venture capital
- Startups
… all backed by strong data points, research, and no fuss trend graphs. Their website is full of raving reviews, so go check it out and subscribe here.
The Week in Data
If you want to know about the best of data events happening across the globe and also avail discounts to attend these talks, this newsletter will give you all along with interesting news about what’s new in data and tech.
It is curated by the ODI (Open Data initiative) which was started in 2012 by the inventor of web and AI, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt to show the value of open data to all. Click here to subscribe.
Inside Data Science
Data Science Roundup
The friendly, first-person voice in this newsletter makes the reader feel as if Tristan Handy is discussing week’s top data blog posts with us in person. It is definitely one of our favorites 🧡 Subscribe to the newsletter here.
Checkout his roundup of the top 20 posts in 2019 here.
ImportAI
This newsletter has an interesting format and helps in demystifying AI. The author of this letter Jack Clark is also the director of open.ai who has a no-fluff writing style. The “Why that matters” section gives a good understanding and author’s opinion about each piece in the edition.
The most fun part is the last section of the newsletter, a Tech Tale, which is an intriguing story woven out of a few relevant topics in tech and AI. Check out its archival section and subscribe here.
The Pudding
Our list will be incomplete without adding a good data visualization newsletter to it!
What makes this newsletter stand out is that it’s every edition is an interesting data story with beautiful yet powerful visualizations. They term these stories as Visual Essays. Check out all the visual essays created so far here and subscribe to the letter here.
New Techniques & Resources
Data Science Weekly
This newsletter is full of new things to learn. It features useful articles, videos, guides, and jobs in the field of data science. For someone who is new to the data ecosystem and wants to know more, this newsletter can be a very good starting point. Subscribe to it here.
P.S. They offer some really good and useful resources for aspiring data scientists to help them on their journey. Check them out here.
Data is Plural
Each week Jeremy Singer is going to surprise you by sending some most intriguing datasets in your inbox which are publicly available. They will surely prompt the data analyst inside you to pick one from his list and analyze it by yourself. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
To access the full list of datasets featured so far click here or you can also check out its GitHub repo for all the archival issues here.
Data Elixir
This newsletter is a clean and not too overwhelming weekly dose of learning and insights into the data world. It has sections like:
- Tools and Techniques
- Data Viz
- Conferences and Events
Check out the archives here and click here to subscribe.
O’Reilly Data Newsletter
Yes, it is the same O’Reilly which publishes gem of the books in the field of data science and their newsletter is equally good and informative. They also have a separate AI newsletter which focuses on AI news and resources only. You can view the sample newsletter here and subscribe here.
Now its time to unveil the surprise! 🥁
A special mention to our all-time favorite newsletters Wait But Why and xkcd.
These two newsletters will hardly ever fail to bring a smile to your face/inbox and push you to think through a different perspective which at times is necessary to get through the challenges in our creative and versatile field of data science.
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