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It may sound like the crypto space is having all the tongue-twisting fun lately with DAOs, web3, NFTs — but IT teams have recently worked new jargon into their repertoire as well. It’s worthwhile for non-technicals to get acquainted with, because there’s a growing list of thriving startups in this space.

Observability, in the software world, is when you measure and track a system’s state from the data it generates. There are three key pillars: logs, metrics, and traces. If you’re not an expert, you’d be forgiven for explaining the concept as “monitoring.” However…

“Put simply, monitoring measures something and then evaluates the result of that measurement against a defined standard to tell you whether something is good or bad...” explains the Grafana website. “Observability refers to gathering as much information as possible... to ask questions across that information… These are questions that are not anticipated in advance, like monitoring presumes, but rather questions that arise due to unexpected or novel events within a system.”

Grafana was one of three most-promising observability startups to earn unicorn status this year (along with Chronosphere and Cribl) and announced partnerships with Microsoft and Amazon to bring observability services to Azure and AWS. Epsagon has enjoyed a great year too. The Israel-based company offers serverless observability, enabling companies to search and troubleshoot events across microservices.

Epsagon makers first launched the product back in 2018, and updated the tech community last week with Epsagon 2.0. With the new launch, Epsagon has updated its pricing model, giving everyone access its tool for free, with up to 10M traces per month and unlimited alerts and metrics.

This comes a few months after the team announced its acquisition by Cisco. Cisco’s Liz Centoni sums up the value of the technology well in a blog:

“Cisco’s approach to full-stack observability gives our customers the ability to move beyond just monitoring to a paradigm that delivers shared context across teams and enables our customers to deliver exceptional digital experiences, optimize for cost, security and performance and maximize digital business revenue.”

Whether you explain NFTs to your friends or are Googling how Bitcoin works, we’ve got an event coming up to dive into Web3 and all its possibilities.

The Web3 Panel is December 1 at 11:30 am EST, and it’s virtual so you can network before you learn (1,300+ people in so far), or head straight for the virtual chair and hear from the experts including our host, Laura Shin, crypto journalist and host of The Unchained Pod. You can register for free here.

Speaking of virtual events...

The Internet you’re using — it worked really well back in the 90s when delivering static pages and a few graphics was all it was tasked with.

But the Metaverse is coming (or is already here, depending on which metaverse you’re talking about). Real-time apps are definitely here, from RPG games to the software you work with. To match the experience that makers develop for these products, Internet users need stable connections and the lowest possible latency.

Yesterday, Subspace took the top product of the day slot with its Network as a Service solution that uses AI and its own hardware to find the fastest route for delivering data.

“Think about it as the carpool lane for internet traffic...” explained hunter Ashton Kutcher.

Maker Nikki Shum explained how Subspace “weather maps” the internet in real-time giving the Subspace “the power to find the best paths — a combination of existing paths and our fiber-optic backbone—and pull traffic through them in real-time.” If you speak in PoPs and packets, you can check out Subspace’s launch video to get a more detailed diagram of how the weather mapping works.

Subspace CEO also pointed out to VentureBeat that lag is just part of the story — Subspace lets makers “bring private networking to every internet-connected device without changes to code, VPN clients, or on-premise hardware.”

Yesterday's launch made Subspace available to developers worldwide. The startup, founded in 2019, already has 400 million users on its network and has been working with gaming partners.

The bottom line for the rest of us: Subspace has built another way to make demanding online experiences faster for makers, and therefore faster for you. Because nothing takes you out of the Metaverse like your sword getting stuck in limbo.

Would you chip in to buy a copy of the Constitution? A group of people on the Internet have a plan to do just that by way of something called ConstitutionDAO.

What's happening? The idea is for members of the DAO to pool their funds and bid on a draft of the Constitution. This particular copy was originally made for the Constitutional Congress back in 1787 and it’s going up for auction at Sotheby’s on Thursday. It’s the only surviving copy (out of 13) that’s privately owned.

As of this morning, over $40M has been raised to bid on the Constitution, according to DAO member and maker Julian Weisser, who also noted that donations have a "median contribution [of] $228.58."

How does it work? If you’re new to the term, a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) is a structure that uses blockchain tech to allow participants to self-govern. DAOs enable communities to decentralize authority and automate decisions through rules that are encoded in smart contracts that are stored on the blockchain. In the case of ConstitutionDAO, members join by contributing to the pool (you’ll need Ether) and then will be able to help decide what to do with the Constitution, if it is acquired.

“Governance includes the ability to advise on (for illustrative purposes) where the Constitution should be displayed, how it should be exhibited, and the mission and values of ConstitutionDAO,” explains the ConstitutionDAO website.

If the DAO loses the auction, the makers will refund all of the money. The website makes two things clear: this is not an investment and you won’t be gaining fractional ownership of the Constitution.

What else can DAOs do? Each DAO is different. For example, VitaDAO, which launched in June, was created for community members to fund longevity research. Members join by purchasing VITA tokens, which enable members to engage in decision-making around research funding and governance of the IP portfolio.

The crypto community is bullish on DAOs, while others have been critical of them, especially following an incident where one DAO, called “The DAO,” lost $50M in Ether after coding errors resulted in hackers stealing the money. Since then, makers in this space have poured a lot more thought into the governance of DAOs.

But why this? While ConstitutionDAO notes it’s using this technology to “honor and protect the greatest historical tool for human governance,” it seems fair to say that ConstitutionDAO, if successful, will also serve as a high-profile example of what DAOs — and communities with the right tools — can accomplish.

1.75 million. That’s how many sellers use Shopify to power their businesses. The powerhouse company emerged as one of the biggest winners of post-pandemic booms and hasn't looked back.

Investors and users love Shopify for its comprehensive approach to commerce. Over the last year, the company has been busy announcing new partnerships. In the spring, it strengthened its partnership with Google, enabling merchants to leverage Shop Pay (its fast checkout feature) across Google experiences. In October, Shopify announced that artists will be able to connect their Spotify profiles to their stores for selling merch. MailChimp and Shopify just launched a direct integration, and Microsoft got in on a partnership too.

Then there’s the Shopify App store, which contains over 7,000 apps. They're a critical structure for the company — 87% of merchants use them. App makers add crucial functions for sellers, and challenge the limits of what merchants can do within the ecosystem.

Vajro is a recent example. The Shopify app lets brands build iOS and Android apps that sync with their Shopify stores, with a drag and drop builder (i.e. no-code.) Not only does this give brands a better shopper experience, it enables them to take advantage mobile push notifications, live streaming, and more features that can help boost sales.

“Mobile apps have always been the big guy’s jam… We wanted to democratize mobile apps by enabling and empowering small businesses,” maker Venkatasubramanian Ravi wrote. The app appears to be a favorite among competitors, with 862 reviews at a 5.0 rating when searching for "mobile app" or "app builder" in the Shopfiy App Store.

Need more? Here’s are five top-upvoted apps from the last year for Shopify sellers.

Dialogue: An AI-powered platform to surface suggestions, upsells & cross-sells, content, etc.
Paloma: Create automated shopping conversations for Facebook and Instagram DMs
Reeview: Automate collecting product review videos
Social Snowball: Turn your customers into affiliates with automated codes and payouts
Dovetail: A tool to help recruit, manage, and grow sales through influencers/ambassadors

The US hit a new record. Last week, the Labor Department said more than 4.4 million workers quit their jobs voluntarily in September — the highest on record. It’s driving companies to get serious about their plans for retaining workers.

Remote work has been a centerpiece topic. Emboldened by new tools, conscious founders, and startup success stories (see: Gitlab’s IPO), more startups are embracing remote life. But it’s not the whole story.

“Now is the time for HR to act and implement change,” wrote Kate Lynch for the Forbes Human Resources Council. “There are more innovative and out-of-the-box solutions today than ever before.”

SimplePerks, launching today, is an example. The startup enables companies to distribute benefits cards to employees and create one-time or recurring perks. Employees can use the app to see their perks.

Another example is Carrot Fertility, which closed a $75M funding round in August (and it's one of this writer's favorite benefits from Product Hunt). Fertility benefits have been increasing in popularity for years, but post-pandemic life is giving the space a bump. For one thing, people are revisiting the idea of growing their families again. Another: “68% of adults would change jobs for a company with better fertility benefits” noted Tammy Sun, Carrot Fertility’s founder, to Forbes.

But even the best benefits don’t guarantee your employees will stick around. Sometimes it comes down to fit. There’s a solution for that too. A team of makers launched Unboxable today, a new prediction matching platform that the makers say you can use to hire with 93% accuracy.

“The truth about today's hiring industry is that 46% of new hires are bad hires,” writes co-founder Stephie Knopel. The tool puts talent through an automated Job Simulator, a “fun experience where you also learn about the REALITY of the role, [then Unboxed] surfaces the shape of the talent: a data language that allows us to see with accuracy, if this is a TrueFit and if there's a high chances to thrive on both sides.”

Unboxable isn’t the only self-described job simulator launching today. Forage launched its platform for career discovery and upskilling. Users can job try out job simulations which are “like online courses, with 5-6 hours of content each and show the nitty-gritty of work,” wrote co-founder, Pasha.

“Think of Forage as Skillshare,” he continues, “but for learning real skills used at real companies, taught by the companies you want to work for.”

A couple of teens reminded us this week that age can be just a number when you’re a maker.

First SpaceHey, a MySpace-like site from 19-year-old developer An, hit 200,000 users. Then yesterday, on her fifteenth birthday, Pranjali Awasthi launched Delv, an AI-powered engine that summarizes and graphs information to help you learn about complex concepts faster.

“Let's say you're getting into AI..." Awasthi explained, "[Y]ou want well-researched information on a multi-layered concept like Classification Models, you plug in specific topics you want to know, [and] websites you like reading from. Delv will build you a knowledge graph of connected concepts, with each node representing a highly relevant article's summary.”

Delv has been backed by Backend Capital — Awasthi is an Entrepreneur In Residence at the early-stage VC firm that's founded by Lucy Guo and Dave Fontenot. In her LinkedIn description, Awasthi describes herself as an “AI/ML & Computational Neuroscience Enthusiast.” Articles online have called her a “child prodigy” and “superstar on the rise.”

Awasthi was previously a research intern at the Schwartz Center for Computational Neuroscience. She also interned at the Neural Dynamics of Control Lab at Florida International University where she worked in the overlap of neuroimaging and machine learning on a project that involved building a classifier to detect errors in cognitive tasks using EEG imaging, supported by a grant she received from the New York Institute of Technology.

Awasthi knows her age surprises and inspires and she credits her success to being exposed to academia at a young age via her mother and father, who brought her to the US from India four years ago. The young founder has been active in efforts to introduce more young students to AI.

“I feel we need to start even more early and introduce AI as a core subject even in elementary school starting from basic projects to increase their knowledge base.”

What would your mind look like if you could see it as a whiteboard or mood board? We imagine there would be a bunch of snippets or sticky notes with random mental notes you’ve collected.

That’s how you could describe My Mind, a new product from serial maker and designer, Tobias van Schneider. The tool lets you dump your notes (images, links, videos, quotes, PDFs, articles) in one visual space, and uses artificial intelligence to sort it all for you. No need for folders, labels, or organizational systems. To find something search for a word, color, or object that you remember.

Van Schneider started working on the product after becoming frustrated with note-taking tools that require time to manage, and then fall apart when we forget to tag things or encounter something that doesn’t fit into the categorization structure we initially created.

My Mind has an element of Pinterest — pin things from across the web or upload them to a board to save them for later — but the tool isn’t about discovery like Pinterest. Perhaps more importantly, it’s absolutely not a social tool.

“When everything we do is seen by others, we act differently. We start curating our identity, whether consciously or subconsciously,” explains the My Mind website.

My Mind is designed to be a private space, without any social features to inspire chasing vanity metrics, like comments or likes. Although, if you do want to share “a little piece of your mind” with a friend, you can use a share link that expires after 24 hours.

We just covered the launch of Personal AI which plays in a similar space — leveraging AI to do the manual work of organization and recall for you. Pair these with tools like Scribe AI, which automate note-taking in your meetings, and you have to wonder...

Will we be soon be saying RIP to note-taking soon too?

The Information published its second-ever 50 Most Promising Startups this week where journalists try to spot “under-the-radar startups that could be the next Shopify or Snowflake”.

Reporters limited the field to non-unicorn startups that either raised less than $100M or started running operations in the last three years.

To spot the best, reporters looked for companies they believed had the “most potential to be valuable," which involved looking at their business models, growth prospects, and revenue. This years' list includes startups from Hugging Face to DoNotPay, across 6 categories.

Since the Daily Digest covers the newest tech, we perused the list looking for those startups with the newest launches, and found most of those hiding in crypto. Dig into three of the most promising startups (according to the Information) from that space.

Audius - A decentralized and censorship-resistant SoundCloud competitor
QuickNode - An API & node service to power your blockchain applications
Chia - The eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor that uses a “proof of space and time” to validate transactions (note: chia transactions were enabled in May of this year)

"That's awesome! But what else is new?" you say. If you're bullish on this space, check out these three popular launches from just the last week.

vig - Just-launched vig provides gamified decision intelligence for Stocks, Options, Crypto, and ETFs. Its Fantasy Stocks experience also lets you play in any one of the startups daily Fantasy Stock, ETF, and Crypto Games to gain experience, have fun, and compete.

Thresholds - This startups goal is to build a simple way for users to spend, earn, and invest in crypto. The DeFi growth account lets users earn up to 6.25% on their USD (earned in Bitcoin with other cryptos coming soon).

MyNFT.fyi - This tool lets you quickly verify ownership of your NFT profile picture (think of it like a blue verified checkmark for your NFT on social). Users enter their Opensea NFT URL, sign off with their Ethereum address, and get a certificate for everyone to see.

Is the next biggest Coinbase here?

We love when products combine our favorite things, and today’s launch of iOS App Icon Book does just that, pulling together tech, apps, and design into one product.

The iOS App Icon Book celebrates the art of app icon design and preserves the history of the art that has lived on our mobile devices.

Maker Michael Flarup writes: “Many apps featured in this book aren't around anymore or have evolved — which means the work we've been doing to capture this artwork have bordered on internet archaeology.”

The book surpassed its €10,000 goal (with €54,930 pledged at the time of writing) on Kickstarter with 594 backers.

It’s been a while since we put tangible products in the spotlight, so let’s check out a few of the top voted crowdfunding products from the last year for real tables and desktops.

Lomi Home - Home composter able to break down bioplastics, odor and mess free
Keychron K7 - Ultra-slim mechanical keyboard with a hot-swappable option for custom keys
Nano Garden - Everything you need to grow plants on your desk
Lumina 4K Webcam - Look great on every call with AI and Computer Vision

What did we miss? Hunt your favorite crowdfunded products.

Earlier this year, you met a new search engine that’s challenging Google’s monopoly over search. Neeva wasn’t the first to take on Goliath, but the startup introduced a cohort of newcomers in the space that want to make the competition more… competitive.

You.com is here now too and battle-ready. It just launched the public beta of its new private search engine that summarizes the web.

Co-founders Richard Socher and Bryan McCann are AI experts. Socher is the fifth most-cited Natural Language Processing (NLP) researcher in the world. He was most recently a chief scientist at Salesforce, where he helped build Einstein AI after joining the team when Salesforce acquired his AI company, MetaMind.

Tech experts are pointing out that Google is feeling the heat under antitrust scrutiny — some would like to regulate the company’s monopoly on the market. That might make this a good time for competitors in that space, they say.

While that might be true, Socher is more focused on AI. In an article for Product Hunt, he wrote about how he believes there’s no better time to launch a new search engine:

“Without the surge of deep learning, unsupervised, semi-supervised and transfer learning, it would have been impossible for a small company like ours to build an entirely new search engine experience, from scratch.”

Socher also explained the many reasons why he finds Google’s dominance so concerning, for both users and businesses. One issue points to how Google serves as a gatekeeper to content.

“It keeps the bulk of search traffic to itself — nearly 65% of searches worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2020 were "zero-click," ending without that traffic going to another website… I predict the trend of zero-click searches will only increase, and ads will continue to proliferate in the search results.”

In addition to its web summaries, You.com offers “superior” (and optional) privacy choices, personalization, and 100+ apps that make relevant content readily available. For example, you can search Reddit, Quora, Stack Overflow, and Medium with a single query to explore one topic from different angles.

The startup is backed by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff who’s leading a $20M funding round, and counts support from techies like Justin Kan, who hunted today’s launch.

What do you think of the new Google search competitor?