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Our ultra-fast Daily: Three takes on new products. Yesterday’s top ten launches. That’s it.
Project management is a space in non-stop iteration mode. Every once in a while, a product like Slack or Trello revolutionizes the space. It’s followed by a series of “If X and X had a baby” products that combine and iterate core concepts.
That’s not to downplay the latter. Makers come to the table with fresh product design and development perspectives for incorporating emerging tech and trends.
In project management, those trends currently include spatial note-taking, real-time collaboration, AI, automation, and whiteboarding. A few new noteworthy contenders have launched with a combination of such features.
For engineering teams, there’s Tara AI, a product that’s coming straight for Jira. The company just launched its second version after incorporating feedback from the community last year. With a vision for “a ticketless future,” Tara AI 2.0 includes automatic status updates based on Git events, auto-sprinting, and progress views with live pull-requests and commit statuses.
Clover is a creative workspace that combines notes, whiteboarding, todos, and a daily planner. Clover's spatial and real-time workflows give it brainstorming, diagramming, and collaboration power in addition to task management.
“At the core of Clover is a new type of document called a Surface. It combines the power of a modern text editor with the flexibility of a whiteboard (think Dropbox Paper meets Figjam).” Co-founder Tom Giannattasio shared.
If Clover is a creative workspace, think of Infinity Maps as your knowledge workspace – “if Miro and Notion had a baby.” Infinity Maps is bringing together whiteboarding, diagramming, and real-time collaboration.
Like Clover, Infinity Maps is hoping to tap into your “sense of space” to help bring structure to projects that are complex and scattered, without stifling ideas and creativity. Infinity Maps is in its 1.0 launch phase and Clover just opened its beta — the perfect time to test and share highly impactful feedback with the makers about what you need.
Infinity Maps also has a pretty loveable video, and we love a good launch video.
Quora became the latest company to announce monetization tools for creators last week.
“We want to make sharing knowledge more financially sustainable for creators.” Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo said on the company’s blog.
Creators have two money-earning options with the new Quora+ product. They can join an earning program where writers get paid for member's reading time, or be included in Quora's subscription bundle where members pay $5 per month or $50 per year.
Quora is following in the footsteps of big tech companies that are building tools for the creators already on their platforms, but we’ve seen a couple of innovators identifying new and unique gaps in this space. We just mentioned the launch of Mentorcam last week which enables high-profile experts to share their knowledge in a manageable way. Ghost Knowledge launched in June, which collects pledges to fund articles from experts who don’t normally publish. The top article request has more than 50 pledges.
More people have the opportunity to grow passion careers, side-projects, and personal brands than ever before. That doesn’t equate to having the resources to be fulfilled and successful. We compiled ten of the most useful tools we’ve seen launch for creators so far this year.
MediaKits - Link your accounts to highlight your reach, top posts, and more in minutes
Creators Toolkit - A collection of 250+ tools for all types of creators
Spore - All-in-one website builder for engaging and sharing with fans
LeadDelta - Connections manager built for creators
Clarity - List of mental health resources for musicians and creators
Setups - Wesbite of creator workspaces and equipment for inspiration
Flowbo - A funding system for creators to provide predictable revenue
Musixmatch Pro - All-in-one platform for musicians to verify claim copyrights, distribute, and more
Gigs - All-in-one platform for video creators
Open Benchmarks for Instagram - Tool to help creators see how their stats stack up
This week, the crypto world has been watching one of the biggest crypto heists to date play out on Twitter.
Hackers stole $613M in cryptocurrency from DeFi platform Poly Network, which enables users to transfer tokens from one blockchain to another. A recent Poly Network tweet shared that more than half of what was stolen had been returned.
In March, hackers also stole NFTs from investors on Nifty Gateway, causing one user to lose $10K+ worth of work. Both events have sparked conversations about the safety of crypto exchange.
Crypto security experts aren’t deterred, but they do want you to be informed.
“I think this demonstrates that even if you can steal cryptoassets, laundering them and cashing out is extremely difficult, due to the transparency of the blockchain and the use of blockchain analytics,” Tom Robinson, chief scientist of blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, tweeted.
What Robinson left out is that different assets and marketplaces work differently. In the NFT heist, Nifty Gateway explained that the source culprit was poor account management — the specific users’ credentials were stolen, and none of them had two-factor authentication enabled. Still, it's important to note that once an NFT is gone, it may be impossible to get back.
“The art heist highlights [] the security steps and understanding of decentralization that users new to the scene might be lacking... Once the transfer of an NFT, even a stolen NFT, is initiated… it cannot be reversed.” Benjamin Powers wrote for Coindesk.
So before we bring you the latest NFTs launches, we ask you to secure your accounts! You can also dive into an article or two about security pros and cons for decentralized and centralized models.
PartyBid - Combine your capital and bid on NFT actions
24 Hours of NFT - Claim your seconds of the day from an infinite loop of NFT art
NFTimeshares - Deposit an NFT and get back 12 Timeshares of that NFT
The Nifty - A suite of tools for monitoring the NFT market
Mintbase - Create and trade digital items as tickets, art, music, and more
Cheetah Club Coalition - A unique cheetah NFT for each one left in the wild, benefiting the Born Free Foundation
You can also check out the community’s current favorite crypto and NFT projects.
Instagram started out of founder Kevin Systrom’s love for photography, but many photographers don’t see the app as an outlet for creativity or place for community like they once did.
"As an amateur photographer, I am craving "community not comparison," commentor Kartik Parija wrote on Product Hunt.
A lot of catalysts can be credited for this change: Facebook acquiring Instagram, an algorithm that favors likes, filters and society’s obsession with perfection, social giants like TikTok popping up and pushing competitors to shift their priorities — to name a few.
Even Instagram admits they’ve got new priorities, as evidenced by this quote resurfaced by an article on Om.
"We're no longer a photosharing app," Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, a division of Facebook
Glass is trying to fill the void. The new photosharing app and community for photographers launched on Product Hunt on Tuesday. Its bootstrapping founders, Tom Watson and Stefan Borsje, met while working together at Framer. Watson is ex-Facebook and ex-Pinterest, counting over 20 years of experience in product design. He told Om:
“We hope to build a community for all levels of photographers to learn, grow, and generally nerd out about photography.”
So how is Glass different? At the top level, it’s private and subscription-based. If that sounds like deja-vu, it might be because we just wrote about Neeva, the “anti-Google,” a new search engine from an ex-Google team with a subscription-based and ad-free model. And then there was Monarch from a founder who’s ex-Mint with a similar story. The move away from pure ad monetization continues, but the bottom line effects on big tech is yet to be determined.
On a features level, Glass also steers clear of public counts (Instagram has been experimenting with this) and engagement algorithms. Photographers will be excited by things like P3 color profile support, minimal compression, and EXIF data behind your photos.
See more of the features and what the community is saying about Glass's entrance among its predecessors, from Instagram to Flickr.
Imagine typing “make kitty fall from the sky” and watching code generate that makes your cat image fall from the top of your screen. It’s raining cats instantly!
OpenAI has unveiled a new Codex, an “AI system” that translates your plain English text into code.
Last month we shared the launch of Copilot, the AI-enabled pair programmer that completes your code. Think of how Gmail suggests the end of your sentences in emails. Like that, but with code.
Copilot was created by Github and OpenAI using an earlier version of Codex, but the makers had only given us a peek at their Codex research at the time. Now they’ve released an updated version and an API, making it available for free in private beta.
Codex, a descendant of GPT-3, is trained on code — notably, virtually all the public code on Github along with other repositories. Codex has the natural language understanding GPT-3 does, which means when you write “fall from the sky” not only does it know what you mean, it knows to accelerate speed to emulate an item falling from the sky.
Codex is most capable in Python but also proficient in over a dozen languages from JavaScript to Ruby. Not-a-shocker: It’s not perfect. Techies and journalists are quick to test its limits, digging deeper into stacked, complex commands. Another criticism worth noting is that some coders take issue with the fact that Codex is trained on their code repositories.
OpenAI seems overall unconcerned and bullish about how this technology will help coders. The launch blog explains:
“Once a programmer knows what to build, the act of writing code can be thought of as (1) breaking a problem down into simpler problems, and (2) mapping those simple problems to existing code (libraries, APIs, or functions) that already exist. The latter activity is probably the least fun part of programming (and the highest barrier to entry), and it’s where OpenAI Codex excels most.”
We have a lot of GPT-3 fans in the house, so we’re not surprised that so far, the Product Hunt community seems to agree.
“Everybody will truly have an opportunity to be a maker,” Slava Bobrov wrote.
What do you think?
Redfin and Zillow have tangentially benefitted from the cultural phenomenon of the real estate market, but have they really leveraged it as the content machine it is?
HGTV figured it out early. The network's breadth of both filler and compelling content propelled it to a top 5 cable network in the US. Competitors like Netflix followed their lead, and also figured out that social media is as much a powerful content generator as it is a distribution channel. In today’s world, influencers get contracts to host design shows and popular accounts are adapted to TV shows.
“Real estate is not just a transaction. It’s an entire culture,” wrote Alex Perelman with today’s launch of Playhouse. The makers of Playhouse spotted a gap between all of the home-related content you consume and transactions IRL.
“Maybe you saw an amazing house tour, but is it even in your state?... This one company does incredible tile work, but dang, not in your zip code. And so on it goes... a missed opportunity to connect millions of entrepreneurs and small businesses with potential customers in the real world.”
With the Playhouse mobile app, users can browse video listings like they would TikTok.
“Our vision is a real estate app that is both entertaining and practical. The content is fun and addictive like TikTok, but also practical and actionable like Zillow or Yelp.”
Would social and local content make your home browsing easier or more enjoyable? Let the makers know what you’d like to see from the app.
Not only do American consumers love same-day delivery, they’re growing to expect it.
“Demand for same-day delivery is growing at 43% annually across many business verticals,” wrote Mahmoud Ghulman, co-founder of Nash, on Product Hunt.
Amazon has something to do with that. Same-day delivery has been available on select products in densely populated areas globally since 2015. The problem is that most retailers or distributors don’t have the resources or scale that Amazon does. So what about everyone else? Makers are trying existing networks to close the gaps.
Nash is working to make it easy for businesses to offer same-day delivery at scale. Businesses (e.g. dry cleaners) can use the Nash software or API to offer pickup/delivery at a customer’s desired time by connecting to delivery providers (e.g. DoorDash), without needing to hire drivers or manage their own delivery operations.
Cache, which launched on Product Hunt last Friday, is in this space but is further focused on serving non-urban areas where “convenience deserts” have limited consumers from taking advantage of doorstep delivery.
“We’re big fans of products like GoPuff but... the economics don’t really lend themselves to many suburban areas... It doesn’t make sense to staff someone in a store overnight only to fulfill $30 worth of NyQuil (or even 10x that). Even though having access to snacks, OTC drugs… is really important when you need it.” wrote Jimmy Young. Young and co-founder, Christopher Wu, were previously working to lower costs for on-demand delivery at DoorDash.
Cache creates digital storefronts on Doordash and Uber Eats. Consumers make an order and drivers collect them at tiny, automated dark stores for delivery. The units can even hold ice cream, and maybe one day iPhones. Cache units are in just two locations today with plans “to cover the majority of the U.S. in the next 5 years and expand categories.”
Click through to get a look at the dark stores and share feedback.
TikTok is getting lots of attention, as usual. This week it announced ephemeral Stories and we all had something to say about it.
Last month, the company started testing a job application tool with the likes of Chipotle, Target, and Shopify. Now Gen Zers are landing jobs through #winning TikTok videos. Techies are predicting LinkedIn will follow with a similar feature soon.
Sure, PDF CVs have felt passé for a while, but we still send and upload them regularly.
CV first launched on Product Hunt 8 months ago with its new solution. Maker Andy Chung explained he wanted a simple page where he could edit and share his CV that wasn’t “heavy” like LinkedIn, but wasn’t a PDF either — a more “link-in-bio sized” resume.
The makers have now returned with Read.cv which includes social features to enable “meaningful connections” among users. Maker Joey Flynn explains how their approach is different from LinkedIn. The most important point is that “no one, including [the makers], can muck up your profile.” He explains:
“No one can endorse you for random stuff, no upsells, no banner ads... If read.cv is going to work, you're going to need to be able to send anyone your profile and know exactly what they're going to see — we will always preserve [that] at all costs.”
We are all about a clean, digital CV, particularly if it means finally putting an end to the miserable experience of uploading a PDF, then re-inputting all the same info into fields again.
On that note, another new launch, Job Tracker 2.0, is making job searching less painful. The Chrome extension and platform allows you to track and organize your applications across the web.
If you’re not a job seeker now, bookmark these or be a good friend and pass them on. Friends don’t let friends search for jobs unequipped.
If you are searching, psst... we're hiring!
Airbnb iterates fast. A recent blog from Ryan Brooks, a software engineer at Airbnb, gave us a look under the hood.
The emerging technique the company uses is server-driven UI (SDUI) and it’s used by other large companies too, like Spotify and Facebook.
“In a traditional world, data is driven by the backend and the UI is driven by each client (web, iOS, and Android),” Brooks explained. To show Airbnb’s listings page, for example, data might be pulled from the backend and then transformed by the client to show you the user interface with the listings.
SDUI allows engineers to pass the UI and data together natively — "the client displays it agnostic of the data it contains." That means makers can update their app's UI without requiring an App Store update.
Sounds likes a great strategy! But maybe you don’t have the resources Airbnb does. Enter Judo, a new no-code solution.
Judo is a Mac app for building native mobile interfaces without code that enables server-driven UI. It launched on Product Hunt last month. “This is game-changing for parts of your app that require continuous iteration like your app’s onboarding, or ephemeral content such as marketing or promotional campaigns,” Judo co-founder, Sean Rucker, explained.
The comments section speaks for itself.
“Amazing product! It's a trip building native app experiences from a WYSIWYG dashboard.” - Rory Kane
There are even more benefits to SDUI. Get a deeper dive into Judo and Airbnb’s “Ghost Platform” using SDUI on the launch page.
A real-time collaboration map tool launched today called Mapus that can help you plan trips synchronously with your family and friends.
Real-time collaboration is more important than ever in workspaces, but tech users want more out of their personal tools, too. Maker Alyssa X (a bootstrapping maker who launched Screenity to #1 in November) was surprised that other map tools only offered async collaboration.
Inspired by Figma, Mapus lets you highlight areas on the map, create lines and markers, find places, and view annotations, among other things. It's open-source and Alyssa X has included easy instructions in the GitHub repo so anyone can self-host a map.
Hyperbeam just launched its live collaboration tool on Product Hunt, too – a shared browsing site that lets you surf the web and watch shows with others. While there have been plenty of watch-together tools launch since the pandemic started, the community's enthusiasm for this product caught our eye.
“Love using Hyperbeam! So amazing that you've bootstrapped your way to a 10X better product and MAUs than your VC-backed peers.” - James Skylor
“Amazing product: the UI is clean and nice, super easy to understand, works way better than most similar products I've tried.” - Dursfellot
Hyperbeam was founded as a capstone project by an engineering team at the University of Waterloo. The makers have bootstrapped the product to over 150K monthly active users since starting in late 2019.
For more to do with friends, check out two more launches from the past year that enable shared Spotify playlists and shared video creation.















