In this episode of the Data Show, I spoke with Grace Huang, data science lead at Pinterest. With its combination of a large social graph, enthusiastic users, and multimedia data, I’ve long regarded Pinterest as a fascinating lab for data science. Huang described the challenge of building a sustainable content ecosystem and shared lessons from the front lines of machine learning product launches. We also discussed recommenders, the emergence of deep learning as a technique used within Pinterest, and the role of data science within the company.

A Framework for Building and Evaluating Data Products

O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators. At O’Reilly, a big part of our business is paying attention to what’s new and interesting in the world of technology. We have a pretty good record at having anticipated some of the big technology developments in recent history. For instance, we launched the first commercial Web site, GNN, in 1993; we organized the meeting at which the term “open source” was first adopted; we were early investors in Blogger, which helped launch the blogging revolution; and more recently, our Web 2.0 conference launched a world-wide meme. We call this predictive sense the “O’Reilly Radar.” And while we’re certainly not always right, we are, at least, good at making interesting guesses.

Our methodology is simple: we draw from the wisdom of the alpha geeks in our midst, paying attention to what’s interesting to them, amplifying these weak signals, and seeing where they fit into the innovation ecology. Add to that the original research conducted by our Research team, and you start to get a good picture of what the technology world is thinking about.

A Framework for Building and Evaluating Data Products

O'Reilly Radar