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A new experimental app from Facebook just launched.

It’s called Hobbi and it’s a lot like, well, Pinterest. It’s also a lot like Google’s new app called Tangi, which sort of reminded us a lot of Jumprope (read more on that here).

The app is aimed at hobbyists who like things like crafting, fitness, cooking, baking, and interior decorating, and users can organize their various projects into collections. They can also create videos of finished projects within the app, but as of now, there’s no built-in social sharing feature. 👀

Hobbi comes out of Facebook’s semi-new “Product Experimentation“ team, which has launched apps like the ad-free meme maker Whale, anonymous chat app Bump, and a social music app called Aux.

Facebook has previously stated that these new apps aren’t necessarily meant to last, and the main goal of the Product Experimentation team is to give people “new experiences for building community.”

“Unlike Facebook’s family of apps, NPE Team apps will change very rapidly and will be shut down if we learn that they’re not useful to people. We expect many failures. We also want to minimize disruption to the billions of people who use Facebook apps every day,” Facebook wrote in a statement. 

Give Hobbi a spin here and tell us that you think. 🤔

The whole foldable phone thing came onto our radar just about a year ago, when Samsung officially unveiled its “Galaxy Fold“ smartphone. The Galaxy Fold’s screens infamously started to break (and then break again), so of course Samsung came out swinging at its annual event with the Galaxy Z Flip this week.

The compact phone folds up into a small little square when it’s closed, and Samsung says the phone’s bendable glass screen should last for 200,000 folds. Would you get it? Tell us! The phone arrives this Friday for $1,380.

Samsung also took the hood off of another smartphone at the event: the Galaxy S20 (aka the annual refresh of Samsung’s flagship phone). Big changes include the removal of the headphone jack, another camera and better photo features. These phones will be available during the first week of March.

Samsung also announced its second-generation wireless earbuds, Galaxy Buds Plus, at the event. TLDR; the new buds provide a huge boost to battery and sound, but they look exactly like the original Galaxy Buds (Samsung’s answer to AirPods).

Happy folding, everyone. 📱

Slack groups are on the rise. With recent surges in remote working and the popularity of small-group messaging outside of work, it makes sense. Slack communities are like an online forum for niche interests, and it’s not uncommon to belong to more than one Slack group.

This also presents a problem: Slack was originally intended as a messaging services among coworkers, something that employees consistently check throughout the day. But if you belong to several Slack groups, it’s really easy to fall behind on threads and messages.

Enter: Lowdown, a new app that turns community content from Slack into an auto-generated newsletter.

“Last year I started a Slack community which grew to over 800 members, but I noticed that many of the people who joined didn’t engage and eventually disappeared. I desperately wanted a way to re-engage with these members so I could remind them of the valuable content my community offered. If I could do that they’d know what they missed and could return to get involved. That’s when we had the idea to highlight the post's members engaged with the most in a weekly newsletter.” - Lowdown co-founder Steven Hylands

How it works: Lowdown watches whatever Slack channels you want, and then automatically resurfaces the posts in those channels with the most replies/emoji reactions in newsletter format. If you currently run a Slack group, you can auto-subscribe your entire membership to Lowdown or ask your community members permission via a Slackbot DM. Your “newsletter“ will then be sent to subscribers every week, with no manual input from you.

Judging by the reaction on Product Hunt, people really dig this idea:

“This could be very useful, I’m starting to drown in Slack communities.” - Chris

“200% value added to any Slack community.” - David

“I'm part of a few Slack communities and I struggle to keep up sometimes, but I don't like feeling like I've missed useful or entertaining content so I generally have to find time to scroll through the various channels for updates - not great. Thank you for creating this, huge problem solved!“ - Melissa

Raise your hand if you’re getting Lowdown to handle all your Slack groups. 👋

Hoop, an app that looks like Tinder but works for finding new friends on Snapchat, hit the number two spot on the App Store charts this month.

Why you should care: Hoop was created with Snap Kit, Snapchat’s developer tool kit that lets makers integrate Snapchat’s features (Bitmoji, Stories, Ads, etc.) into their own apps. We’ve seen Snap Kit catapult other apps — namely, Yolo — to the top of the App Store and into the internet zeitgeist among teens.

Hoop ultimately works a lot like Tinder (or Bumble or Hinge) and prompts users to swipe to connect with new people, who they can then message over Snapchat. Hoops makes you spend “diamonds” in the app if you want to reach out to people. After a certain amount of requests to chat, you can earn more diamonds by sharing and inviting friends to Hoop. The idea, of course, is to ultimately drive more users to Snapchat.

Hoop reportedly has more than 3 million downloads so far. Would you use it?

Some other apps integrated with Snap Kit:

👻 Brb

👻 Wavechat

👻 Stickered

👻 Wishbone 

👻 WYA 

👻 TOKO

👻 PicsArt

👻 Squad

Check out more Snap Kit apps here. 👈

Yesterday, Zyl launched to repurpose all the photos buried in your camera roll that you forgot about. Why? Because you probably don’t do anything with 99% of your photos.

Zyl is reminiscent of apps like Timehop; it’s a “social network” of sorts that creates a “story” for you every day to surface photo memories between you and your friends. 📸

According to founder Mathieu Spiry, the idea behind Zyl is to create a “social graph of your memories.” Really, it’s just a super easy way to make use of all those lost photos.

When asked how this differs from similar tools already available in Google Photos and iOS Photos, Spiry explained that it’s all about the social interactions that happen on Zyl.

The PH community had some interesting takes on how they could see themselves using the app:

“This is actually an interesting concept - I'd certainly love my future family to be able to look back in time and understand who I was, what I did, and the legacy I wanted to leave behind.“ - Martin

“Fun icebreaker to reach out to friends I get to see less these days.” - S. Lee

Thoughts on Zyl? Share them here. 🙌

When you think back on the breakout products in 2019, you think things like TikTok (and apps to support TikTok), Disney+ and Honey (acquired by PayPal for $4 billion).

But what's in store for 2020? Here are some companies to keep an eye on:

Byte is the highly anticipated reboot from the founders of Vine, expected to give TikTok some competition in the bite-sized video world this year (read more about it here). In it’s first week live, the app garnered over one million downloads. Byte’s founders hope the app will stand out from the pack by helping content creators actually make money (TikTok isn’t great at this right now).

“Honestly it's already really good. Surprised and now I actually do think TikTok will get a run for their money.” - Anthony

Cameo ($65.2 million raised) is an app that lets you book videos from celebrities to send personalized shout outs to your friends and family. When we talked to Cameo’s founders in August, they had 18,000 celebrities using the platform and had delivered over 300,000 video requests.

“People love receiving these, it's memorable, it's easy, same amount of money you'd spend on a gift card or a couple drinks for your friend.” - David

Kenshō Health ($1.3 million raised) has been dubbed the “antithesis of Goop” — it’s a database for holistic health backed by science. Kenshō Health used a community of experts and a scientific publisher to create its product, which aims to take the guesswork out of holistic medicine.

“A brilliant and much needed resource! Kensho empowers people to design a holistic approach to their health—from vetted practitioners to researched education/knowledge to enable people to make their own decisions in a new and sometimes overwhelming space.” - Steph

Fast ($2.5 million raised) is a super useful tool that can be used on any website for a secure, one-click login and checkout. Bye bye, passwords.

“This is a very big idea that can remove a real pain point for both consumers and brands. I don’t want to give all my data to Google and Facebook. Seems like a slick experience, hope lots of sites adopt this.” - Paul

The Product Hunt community told us to keep an eye on a few startups in the no-code sphere, including Voiceflow and Glide. We’re also going to watch startups that reduce single-use plastic (like Notpla and Blueland), as well as plant-based meat alternatives (like Nuggs).

If you want to add your own predictions, tell us here. 👈

Amazon Dating is going semi-viral rn. The site’s UX is so similar to to Amazon Prime it’s scary, but instead of books and electronics and toothpaste, you can buy a date. 👀

FYI: You can’t actually purchase a person on the site, in case there’s any confusion. The site is a parody, developed by makers Ani Acopian, Suzy Shinn, Morgan Gruer and the animation studio Thinko. The idea is to poke fun at dating apps, especially in a world where big tech companies are launching dating services.

When you click through Amazon Dating, each person’s page looks like a typical product page, complete with a price and description that lists silly personality traits like “owns every Glossier product” and “famous on TikTok” and “leases a Tesla Model 3.” The makers really went all out with this internet bit — they partnered with micro-influencers on Twitter for fake ads and there’s even a “ non-ghosting agreement” (NGA). If anything, the site will make you laugh.

We’ve actually seen a ton of full-blown parody products launch lately, with MSCHF notoriously leading the charge (read all about their “Banksy of the Internet” ethos here). But the idea behind this new wave of prank products — from GAN-generated foot pics to a stocks app based on astrology — is to spark cultural commentary, especially in an era where the consequences of technology seem increasingly dire.

In the comments of the Amazon Dating post, one PH community member speculated that the product’s launch would be more appropriate on April Fool’s Day. “We like to have fun more than one day a year,” Wojtek Witkowski, one of the Makers, wrote back.

Google (sort of) just launched a TikTok competitor.

The new app is called Tangi and it resembles apps like TikTok and Instagram with its vertically-oriented short-form videos. What sets Tangi apart, however, is that the app is intended for how-to videos specifically, and creators need to apply to participate. The app actually bears a striking similarity to Jumprope, an app made for quickly-shot videos that help people discover how to do anything from building a gourmet cheeseboard to making lipstick to embroidery.

Tangi comes out of Area 120, Google’s experimental in-house incubator that has led to products like Game Builder, Rivet, CallJoy, Touring Bird, Emojishot, Chatbase and Shoelace.

When we talked to Jumprope founder Jake Poses about their launch in April of last year, he alluded to why Instagram Stories-like videos are successful — they’re visual and focus on short snippets of content. As a creator, they’re easy to shoot and edit and as a viewer, you can control the speed at which you consume them. 📹

This seems to be the idea behind Tangi, which has started by encouraging creatives to share how-to videos on topics like painting, cooking, fashion, crafting and beauty, among others. The app is leaning into the “how-to” culture that runs rampant on platforms like, say, YouTube.

Would you use this to shoot or watch how-to videos? We want to know what you think. 👀

In December, we wrote about the first AI-powered yoga assistant, a product that uses motion tracking and data to analyze your movements during yoga. Now, AI-enabled fitness is extending beyond yoga and coming for your entire exercise routine.

Last week, Next! Fitness launched on Product Hunt to help gym goers *actually* achieve their goals. How it works: Users work out with smart mirrors in a physical gym (the first one is in SF) that demo how to do each workout, count your reps and give feedback on your form. More specifically, the smart mirror gym will give you a detailed workout plan and encourage you to push a little further. After finishing an exercise, the mirror will point you to where in the gym you need to go for your next exercise.

Next! Fitness is reflective (no pun intended) of the rise of fitness startups that utilize smart mirrors and screens, which includes products like Mirror, Tonal and Peloton. What’s different about Next! Fitness is the physical element — it’s just a regular gym but with smarter equipment. 💪

Some early reviews from users:

“I got to go to their SF gym. The smart mirror looks amazing and the space is gorgeous. I quite like the ability to track my reps in the app.” - Manish

“I love the fact that it could turn a workout into a social experience.” - Austin

“I was fortunate enough to test out Next last month as a beta user. The full gym experience, recommendations, and body composition insights were better than any gym I've been too.” - Adam

Would you sign up for this? Tell us here. 👈