{"id":811,"date":"2015-09-14T20:32:35","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T00:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/bigml-early-to-the-party\/"},"modified":"2015-09-14T21:48:10","modified_gmt":"2015-09-15T01:48:10","slug":"bigml-early-to-the-party","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/bigml-early-to-the-party\/","title":{"rendered":"BigML \u2013 Early to the Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Second only to the surfer, concern for where & when the next wave’ll occur is nearly a full-time job for some in the tech industry (in fact, for people like Shingy, AOL’s ‘Digital Prophet<\/a>,’ pictured right, it\u00a0is<\/em> a full-time job).<\/p>\n

\"AOL's<\/a>
AOL’s Digital Prophet. Photo Source: MSNBC. Hairstyle Source: A dystopian future, presumably.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While even the layest of persons might’ve heard about Big Data as the next wave, though, the details surrounding the actual implications and implementations haven’t quite made it down from the clouds. \u00a0Everyone<\/em>\u00a0knows\u00a0<\/em>that the glut of data will change everything, but few seem to know\u00a0how<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As of this writing, the benefits of machine learning & data mining<\/a>\u00a0(used interchangeably with “ML” hereafter, for simplicity)–i.e., the use of algorithms to recognize patterns and make predictions based on inferences from\u00a0large piles of data,\u00a0are realized only by those with the expertise to employ the techniques, or those who can afford their services.\u00a0 But much in the same way that spreadsheets began as tools only for the most adventurous circa 1960s, the tools of the ML\u00a0trade won’t remain esoteric for very long.<\/p>\n

It’s into this transitional phase, from dumb data to smart data, that BigML entered less than half-a-decade ago. \u00a0BigML offers machine learning in a SaaS framework (MLaaS, as they call it), in an effort\u00a0to “democratize machine learning<\/a>.” \u00a0Their product\u00a0allows users to leverage world-class machine-learning tech for minimal subscription costs, all without having to learn a programming language like R or Python. \u00a0The company presents some of its users’ creations, from the significant (what factors best predict poverty?<\/a>), to the… well, interesting, at least (can whether or not you’ve been skydiving predict how you like your steak cooked?<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Providing user-friendly (or, at least, developer-friendly) ML isn’t new. \u00a0In fact, it’s often hard to differentiate today’s ML insights from yesterday’s analytics-driven decisions. \u00a0In that respect, many of the analytics players are on the field at the enterprise-level, ML being a natural extension of the services with which they’ve always buttered their bread. \u00a0But like their historical offerings, the services aren’t even remotely accessible to end-users.<\/p>\n

The next tier contains the more household-names: \u00a0Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and others. \u00a0Just like many of their SaaS products, companies can integrate these products with relative ease compared to their mega-enterprise rivals, but the services aren’t without limitation. \u00a0BigML made their intern do a comparison<\/a>\u00a0that’s worth a read, but in summary, these services often tie the use of their MLaaS to the use of their other products.<\/p>\n

As you can imagine,\u00a0this leaves a good deal of whitespace–everything from the hacker in her basement trying to figure out forest-fire trajectories, to the medium-sized business with more locally-housed data than they know what to do with. \u00a0With BigML, these folks have access to the knowledge within their data that would’ve otherwise remained hidden–a pretty stellar creation of value.<\/p>\n

The value capture is simple–subscription fees. \u00a0The risk of so simple a platform, though, is stickiness of users–while a learning curve can keep users out, it can also keep them in. \u00a0By remaining committed to the philosophy of democratizing these tools, though, I suspect BigML will make up in loyalty what they may lack in structural barriers to churn.<\/p>\n

ML can do some remarkable things. \u00a0From the interesting (predicting\u00a0a young woman’s pregnancy before she told her parents<\/a>), to the dubiously important (writing a neural network program that teaches itself how to play Mario<\/a>), to the actually-important (reshaping the fight against cancer<\/a>). \u00a0But just like computer programming, when the wider world gets its hands on it, innovation will grow by orders of magnitude. \u00a0BigML is one of the first players to this space, and while the future will be fraught with competition against lethally capable entrants, their success will be remembered as the first of many steps in the Next Big Wave.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How BigML is democratizing the tools of Big Data, making machine learning 'easy &amp;amp; beautiful.' <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[29,366,7,22],"class_list":["post-811","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-data","category-machine-learning","category-winner","category-winning"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/assignment\/digital-winners-and-losers\/","yoast_head":"\nBigML \u2013 Early to the Party - Digital Innovation and Transformation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/bigml-early-to-the-party\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BigML \u2013 Early to the Party - Digital Innovation and Transformation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How BigML is democratizing the tools of Big Data, making machine learning 'easy &amp;amp; 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