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Snap just dropped a feature to officially compete with TikTok called Spotlight.

Shifting gears from the day-to-day content that a user shares with their following, Spotlight will allow creators to share their Snaps to the broader community.

This seems like a natural move for Snapchat as creators have been crossposting content from TikTok and vice versa. Now users will have the option to share their content all in one platform without needing a public account or an influencer following. This means a level playing field for users with personal accounts to Snap Stars with millions of followers.

To entice users to choose Spotlight as their platform of choice, Snap Inc is distributing over $1 million USD every day to content creators until the end of 2020 (and possibly beyond). Earnings are based on the total number of unique video views a Snap gets in a given day. Let’s just say that’s a pretty good motivator to switch. 🤑

With social media companies making big announcements this last quarter, we’re curious to see how users will react and interact with these changes. Let’s not forget that a month ago, Snap Inc released Sounds for Snapchat (throwback to this newsletter).

In case you’re losing track, Twitter is now Instagram, Instagram is now Amazon, Amazon is now CVS, and Snapchat is now TikTok. 🤯

This week brought some interesting product launches from big tech with Bezos making a move on CVS, and Paypal extending a philanthropic arm. It's also been a curious week over in community discussions with some spicy topics up for debate. Couples therapy with your cofounder anyone?

Here's a quick glance ICYMI:

👐 PayPal Generosity Network launched allowing users to create fundraising campaigns to raise up to $20,000 over a 30-day period with PayPal.

💸 Google Pay had a massive relaunch giving users the ability to track spending, send and receive money, earn rewards, and improve financial health.

🎧 Ambush Special Edition Powerbeats released for $199.95. The new design has a glow-in-the-dark feature which is great for night time activities.

💊 Amazon Pharmacy is a new medical service that makes it easier for users to get prescribed medication right from Amazon.

🐦 Twitter Fleets is like Instagram stories...but for Twitter.

Top daily hunts this week 🏆

Machine Translation by Lingvanex allows users to integrate machine translation for up to 110 languages.

BeeCanvas allows users to visual ideas and collaborate with their teams using a virtual whiteboard.

Glorify 2.0 is a design tool that allows teams to easily create product images.

Plant Parenthood allows plant owners to share their plants or ask for help from a global community of plant parents.

Would you go to couples therapy with your co-founder? As an idea shared at YCombinator's Future Founders Conference 2020, we discuss the unorthodox yet viable option of building healthier business relationships.

Gumroad just dropped Gumroad Memberships, allowing creators to set up monthly or yearly subscriptions for their creations.

According to maker Sahil Lavingia, creators have made over $350M selling with Gumroad. 🤯

”The vast majority of these sales have been one-time purchases. Single-product sales are a great model for lots of creators, but many others want to offer their audience the option to pay monthly or yearly for their work. Today, we're thrilled to announce Memberships, to give creators the tools they need to create paid communities, courses, software, newsletters, and more.” – Sahil

This means that users could say goodbye to other tools like Patreon or Substack, to have all their work on one platform generating MRR and ARR.

This announcement may not come as a surprise to existing users. This feature is an evolution of the previous Subscription tool, as the Gumroad team has been slowly rolling out features for Memberships prior to this launch.

As more makers look to their craft to become self-sufficient, Gumroad Memberships provides an option for creators to sell their work to predict a steady, month-over-month (or yearly) income.

Twitter’s much anticipated ‘Stories’ product, Fleets, finally launched yesterday, rolling out world-wide over the coming days on iOS and Android. We first heard about Fleets back in March when the company started testing out the ephemeral tweets in Brazil.

Fleets are “fleeting” by nature, tweets that self-destruct after 24 hours and can only be responded to by reply DM, they can’t be retweeted, liked or publicly replied to. You can use Fleets to share your reactions to Tweets, photos or videos, and customize your Fleets with various background and text options. 

In it’s blog post, Twitter calls on the number of messages left in drafts as the use-case behind building Fleets. Assuming the short-life of Fleets reduces the performance-anxiety of hitting the send button on a permanent tweet.

If you’re having déjà vu, you’re not the only one, other’s have drawn comparisons to IG Stories, TikTok and Snapchat as the real inspiration for this use-case.

We “fleet-ed” for the first time yesterday asking for community members’ reactions (and other shower thoughts). Here’s what you said:

“Will public figures use fleets now instead of deleting tweets?”

“Fleets will be the new home for tiktok/viral videos.”

“If a fleet goes unseen for 24 hours, was it ever a fleet?”

“My timeline is on fleet today.”

After day 1 of the public roll-out, reactions across Twitter have been mixed. We’ve only just starting playing around with Fleets and are keen to see more of your reactions. So far our only negative is the wild-west that has become of our DM inbox. 😅

Shopify’s Exchange Marketplace just dropped Gift A Business.

In this launch, Shopify encourages a different kind of gift-giving by having friends and family purchase a business on your behalf. Most of the businesses on the site are pre-designed and listed between $50 and $250.

While Shopify Exchange launched in 2017 for users to buy and sell businesses, this is the first time users can gift a business to someone else.

If the ‘gift of entrepreneurship’ isn’t for you, here’s a more traditional list of potential gifts this Holiday season:

PupPod Rocker - an interactive toy to keep your dog busy while you WFH.

SideHustle - Apples to Apples meets Shark Tank.

Raspberry Pi 400 - a complete PC built into a keyboard.

Oda - home speaker featuring live music performances.

Backbone - makes mobile gaming magical and effortless.

Ekster Aluminum Cardholder - a space-grade aluminum wallet built for quick access.

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant - a book on all of Naval’s greatest wisdom.

Would you considering ‘gifting a business’ for a friend or family member?

Giving new meaning to the phrase ‘bedroom workout’, the PIVOT bed transforms your bed into a functional gym.

To activate gym-mode, lift the frame of the bed and lock it into an upright position. Users can then use the base to perform workout activities and even pop out an optional power rack. The creators also claim you can use the frame to do dips and pull-ups without the fear of being toppled over.

What might seem like an unorthodox solution may help those living in small spaces or those looking to save time in the morning instead of traveling to the gym. With many areas in the world still experiencing gyms being closed, this might be an interesting substitute.

PIVOT Bed joins the burgeoning at-home fitness trend, with many companies receiving funding this quarter to grow their product ideas (Playbook, Caliber, and Future to name a few). Earlier this year, we covered Tempo in our newsletter as a popular choice for an at home gym; a product with 3D sensors to track your motion and improve your form. We also saw larger players like Lululemon step in to acquire Mirror - a literal mirror that acts as an interactive home gym.

Would you consider sleeping with your gym? 🤔 🤔 🤔

In a week of exciting product launches from both big tech and community makers, here is a snapshot of newsworthy products ICYMI:

🕹️ Nintendo Game & Watch came out today featuring the OG Super Mario Bros game. The system is already sold out on Nintendo’s website.

🇯🇵 Playstation 5’s official launch day was yesterday. The console is already sold out in Japan, with many people joining lottery systems to secure stock.

💨 XBox Series X is now widely available online and in store. It’s highly advised that you don’t blow smoke into your console.

📅 Notion Timeline is Notion’s latest update which lets you plot all your projects chronologically.

📻 Sonos Radio launched Sonos Radio HD yesterday. They’re offering a subscription service for users to stream select stations in lossless CD quality.

💻 Apple’s ‘one more thing’ event brought us a new super chip called the M1 that will power the new Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, and Mac Mini.

Top daily hunts this week 🏆

Crowdbonus is an internal credit system where team members reward other team members.

mythra is a credit card for gamers which rewards you with free games, Steam credits, and more.

xpression camera imprints the movements of your face onto anyone while on Zoom, Twitch, or YouTube.

Hunter Templates is a curated directory of 150+ cold email templates.

Which gaming console will you picking up this week? Make your choice known.

Japanese startup EmbodyMe has launched a new way for you to take Zoom calls ... or freak people out on them. Xpression camera is a virtual camera app that imprints the movements of your face onto any image while you chat on Zoom, Twitch, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet.

Issay Yoshida, CEO of EmbodyMe, recognizes that video chats and live streams have become an essential part of life. His team wanted to offer a way for users to appear on calls without the work of getting fancy (e.g., wearing a suit or putting on makeup). Rather than using a cartoon-like avatar, Xpression camera can turn any image or video into your avatar without any preprocessing time. Go from pajamas to suit instantly.

On top of its practical application, people have found other humorous uses. Users can show up to their next team meeting as Elon Musk or host a Twitch stream as their favorite video game character.

Here's what the community thinks of this release:

“Really cool technology and super relevant given that we spend half of our work time in video meetings nowadays.” - Robert

“The real-time application of this technology is impressive.” - Dave

“This is both very fun and almost terrifying at what is to come.” - Ian

Xpression camera is just one of the many applications that can imprint users’ facial movements. A few months ago in the newsletter, we covered Puppets.World which can produce a video of any person from a photo or portrait. While deepfakes can have some serious implications, products like xpression camera can also help you combat Zoom fatigue by relying on an avatar to take the pressure off emoting 100% of the time.

Will you be brave enough to turn up to your next video call in your PJ's?

Apple just launched three products.

Back in June, Apple announced that the Mac was taking a ‘huge leap’ forward. Yesterday, they shared what that meant with the new Apple Silicon chip for Mac called M1. Originally, a Mac needed multiple chips (processor, I/O, security, and memory) to operate. Now with the M1, these technologies are combined into a single system on a chip (SoC).

With 16 billion transistors, the M1 boasts high performance and high efficiency, meaning that it will use a fraction of the power to deliver quality experiences. Apple claims that typically PCs can’t achieve this balance, especially with integrated graphics - so expect gaming to be lit.

To compliment M1, Apple also shared that Big Sur, Apple's new macOS announced in June, will be widely available on November 12. Big Sur will be supported on older Macs too, so you don’t need to drop $$$ on a new laptop to experience the UI facelift and features.

So where will this incredibly smart chip be used?

💻The new MacBook Air starts at $999, with the CPU speed 3.5x faster and GPU speed 5x faster with the M1 chip. Also, most users will appreciate the silent, fanless design.

💻The new MacBook Pro starts at $1299 and boasts up to 20 hours of battery life - the longest of any Mac ever. It comes with 2.8x CPU performance, up to 5x the graphics speed, and improved microphones.

🖥️The new Mac Mini starts at $699, with up to 3x faster CPU performance and up to 6x faster graphics. As a desktop, it’s tiny but powerful.

The M1 chip models are available starting November 17, or you can preorder online today. Until then, you can explore the glorious memes circling from the event.