Data science is constantly evolving and any data scientist who is trying to keep up with the state of the industry had better be following along with their peers on recent developments. Symposiums and conferences are great for networking and attending presentations, but with the time it takes to schedule keynote speakers and market the event, these kinds of forums inevitably lag behind the most current developments.
Twitter and other social media are fine resources for up-to-the minute information, but data science is a little too complex to fit neatly into 140 characters (or 280, if the data engineers at Twitter have gotten around to updating your account yet).
Instead, the media of choice for following developments in data science is the blog. Blog posts can be any length and incorporate multimedia exhibits, links to citations, and often have discussion threads that allow follow-up questions or critiques to be posted.
Blogs simply provide one of the most current, in-depth and dynamic formats out there for staying up on the latest developments in the field.
Here are the top ten data science blogs we recommend you follow:
- DataTau
DataTau may not look like much, but for fans of the basic, but essential, Hacker News website, it’s a mecca for community-generated posts offering instruction, commentary, or news of interest to the data science community.
There are no bars for contribution, so the quality is across the board, but a voting mechanism helps ensure that the cream rises to the top, and the discussion system is the same free-wheeling board that has helped Hacker News stand out for a decade now.
DataTau does not directly host content, but aggregates feeds from other sites, so it’s likely you’ll see some of the same content here as is offered on other blogs on this list.
- Datafloq
Datafloq might have the widest-ranging data science coverage on the internet today, which is really saying something. Everything from industry news to side pieces on data science applications makes its way onto their blog page. A well-organized interface makes it easy to narrow down articles to only the types you are most interested in reading.
- O’Reilly Data Science Blog
O’Reilly is a training and publishing company that covers all aspects of information technology, and their blog is one to watch for the latest in educational materials, studies, or trending issues in data science.
Professional polish is something that comes with reading blogs put out by a professional publishing company, which makes O’Reilly an easy read, in addition to being a great place for data scientists to access some very valuable information.
- Big Data Made Simple
Well, it’s not really simple, but it’s as close as you are going to get in a field as complicated as data science! Big Data Made Simple features articles that focus on applied data science without dipping into the technical detail that non-data scientists don’t care about.
Despite that, it’s a great read to get a 50,000 foot view of data science, making it perfect for other IT and business professionals looking to get a feel for what’s going on in the world of big data.
- Kaggle
Kaggle doesn’t post as frequently as some blogs on this list, but it’s more community-based and collaborative than any of them. Kaggle aims to be the largest collaborative platform in the world for data scientists and machine learning engineers, allowing user to post large datasets and create competitions for analyzing them that are open to any user.
The blog features competitions, results, and educational information for budding data scientists.
- Revolution Analytics
If you’re into R—and what data scientist isn’t into R?—then Revolution Analytics is a blog you’ll want to follow. All posts are all R, all the time.
The sometimes quirky and hard-to-follow language gets much-needed explanatory posts here, along with tips and tricks for improving performance and optimizing your R code.
- KDNuggets
KDNuggets covers both technical topics and industry news of interest. This makes it a great central resource for keeping your skills sharp and exploring new career opportunities that might become available. KDNuggets is a place where job listings can be found on occasion, while also serving as a hub for educational opportunities like webinars on hot and current topics.
- Smart Data Collective
A different kind of data science blog, Smart Data Collective is a community that you can help create—all posts are user-generated content, so the variety of features is unparalleled. At the same time, a professional editing team reviews and polishes posts before they are made public to ensure that quality standards are maintained.
There’s no charge to publish but you do need to have an account and be approved by the editorial team, another step to ensure quality content. There’s no registration requirements, however, to access the site’s often-interesting and informative content if you’re just looking for a good read.
- Cloudera Engineering
Love them or hate them, Cloudera are the alpha providers in the Hadoop and Spark world, and their engineering team blog is a regularly-updated treasure trove of real-world case studies, performance-enhancing tips, and explanatory articles on both Hadoop and Spark generally and the Cloudera ecosystem in particular. For technical insights and training, this blog is hard to beat.
- Data Science Central
Data Science Central offers up troves of content, three or more posts a day from a variety of authors on every data science topic under the sun. Can’t keep up? A weekly digest version is also available to keep you current with what you might have missed.
The drawback to so many diverse authors is a hit-or-miss quality level in the pieces, but if you want diversity of opinion and subjects, there’s no better place to get it.