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The Roundup

Everything you missed this past week on Product Hunt: Top products, spicy community discourse, key trends on the site, and long-form pieces we’ve recently published.

Conversation starters
A new app launched that's designed for ephemeral, one-to-one, anonymous conversation. Remember those? This commenter does:

“It's like when you rode on the train with a complete stranger before the internet.. You were more willing to share intimate information and discuss topics… This app is like a digital version of this conversation.” - Mark Khramko

Postmodern. works by enabling timed conversations between strangers that last from 5 to 60 minutes, depending on the prompt you choose to discuss. Prompts are topics of conversation, which seem to have a nice balance of being relatable yet broad. For example, “I don’t want my job to define me, but I’m not sure what should.”

Postmodern.’s maker Nathanial explained his motivation for the app:

“It’s critical that we have the ability to intellectually explore without fear of social ramifications… Just two brains bouncing off of each other exploring the void.”

In a way, Postmodern. is the flipside of the dating apps we covered last month which use prompts to help you make lasting connections. Don’t expect anything permanent from Postmodern. — you won’t be able to return your conversations once they’re over (we suppose there’s always Craigslist missed connections).

Even those who don’t consider themselves to be social may find something for them in Postmodern.’s completely anonymous framework. After more than a year of separation, many of us are getting chatty and have been reminded of the value of human connection.

Here are 7 more products that make for good conversation.

Historico - Daily historical events in an iPhone widget

mindf***- Bad Unicorn brings us Headspace with profanity

Fish Swami - Put your epic catch on record to show your friends

Cappuccino - Record audio "beans" with friends; listen tomorrow

Read This Twice - What’s on Elon Musk's reading list? Find out.

Humit - If reddit and Spotify had a baby
Don’t close those tabs. Meet Mighty.
Don't close those tabs.

Mighty has just launched — a faster browser that is entirely streamed from a powerful computer in the cloud.

“When you switch to Mighty, it will feel like you went out and bought a new computer with a much faster processor and much more memory. But you don't have to buy a new computer. All you have to do is download a desktop app.”

Mighty is the newest company from Mixpanel co-founder Suhail Doshi. Mighty says that its speed will enable users to have 50+ tabs open without your computer coming to a crawl. It’ll also give users 2+ hours of battery life. Designing in Figma will feel 2x faster.



Suhail explained in Mighty’s launch blog that while the team initially started its work by looking at streaming Microsoft Windows (“80%+ of humanity still runs Windows”), it became clear that the better focus was browsers now that people have shifted much of their activity to web apps.

“From the user's point of view, the browser is the operating system.”

Mighty suggests its impacts go beyond the browser. Suhail's master plan is to reignite the future of desktop computing. Today, power users are chucking out hardware for newer, pricier models every few years. Suhail’s vision is the opposite. He sees a future where we upgrade less, replacing expensive computers with lower-powered ones, yet still achieving multi-day battery life.

Critics may deem software speed less necessary as hardware improves, but Suhail views things as a virtuous cycle where one inspires the other.

“By changing the constraints we're all used to as software and hardware engineers, a new kind of computer is possible. A computer that can directly benefit consumers to take advantage of cloud infrastructure and networking.”

Mighty is now onboarding new users from their waitlist every week.
Top Launches:InstantMightyMightyButter
“Stick the finger to free trials”
How long has it been since you were enticed by a free trial that ended up costing you?

Recently Slash launched with a service to save you from the consequences of forgetfulness. Slash lets you issue joint, shared debit cards that you and friends can “co-own” so you can split the costs on things like streaming subscriptions. This also means you can quickly create new cards, say with a limit of $1, to skirt being charged once your free trial expires. As maker Victor Daniel Cardenas notes, you’ll be “sticking the finger to free trials!”

“We started Slash as an answer to the ridiculous number of streaming, music, news, and other subscription services that have popped up, each offering their own silos of exclusive content.”

Remember not long ago when we talked about all the different forms of fractional ownership popping up? Add this one to the bank.

Slash’s two main use cases are growing in relevancy.

In the early days of streaming, apps like Netflix and Hulu were seen as an escape from excessive cable bills. As Bloomberg just reported, “If you put together the flagship streaming services… it would now cost you $92 a month in the U.S… as much as a typical cable-TV subscription.”

Separately, Vox writer Emily Steward just lamented about free trial enticements, and did a deep dive on the psychology and finance behind them, noting “Free trials flip the switch from choosing to buy to remembering to quit.”

Slash may be playing in gray territory. Commenters asked how the product will stand up against Terms of Service violations. It looks like the makers are willing to face the risks, partially because splitting amongst a household is totally kosher and partially because...

“Our bet is that it's pretty unlikely that most of them will crack down on cost-splitters, as they depend on these users to keep their service afloat!”

Last summer we saw a similar product, Braid, launch on Product Hunt. Braid enables group accounts by connecting to your existing bank accounts. Like Slash, Braid’s makers noted a lack of Venmo features and stitched-together solutions with apps and excel sheets as a driving motivator behind their product. Unlike Slash, Braid currently offers one credit card paired to a group.
Super-fast backend development is here
Two new product launches have arrived to speed up backend development.

Sourcery debuted its tool that essentially works as a Grammarly for code tool. In other words, it analyzes your code, finds problems, and suggests changes for making it easier to read.



One commenter seeking information on how Sourcery makes accurate code edits got this reply from maker Nick Thapen.

“Firstly bucketloads of internal testing around each suggestion, secondly lots of detailed static analysis of the code, and as a backstop we run all of our suggestions over lots of open-source libraries then check that their tests are still green...”

Sourcery can be installed into PyCharm, VS Code, or your GitHub repos, and it works fully locally so your code is always private.

If you’re starting a new project, you might first look at the beta launch of Napkin, a production-ready, browser-based, backend development tool.

Developers spend countless hours setting up their backend infrastructure. Napkin works to remove all of that tedious and repetitive work. Napkin’s maker, Thomas Wang, explained his and his cofounders’ vision is to make the power of computing available for everyone, without having to become a professional software developer.

Online IDEs (integrated development environments) like Repl.it do provide some conveniences to devs, but Wang explained Napkin’s next-generation approach.

“Our goal was to differentiate early, to fit in neatly with all the modern API's, libraries, and frontend frameworks/clients. We don't want to replace, we want to complement.”

And early adopters are taking note.

“This would've made the learning process for a younger me so much less intimidating… I think we'll see an explosion of ideas manifest on Napkin… 🥳: - Jonathan Xu

“I have 0 backend experience but I've already managed to make a discord bot, slack app… and it was super simple!!” - Isamu Naets

We recently covered Paragon Connect, a low-code Zapier-like tool for speeding up integrations. We’re thinking of Napkin as a relative to the blossoming low and no-code space — another wave of making development less cumbersome and more accessible.
RIP Craigslist
Millennials to boomers have something to bond over — a Craigslist memory? While Craigslist's retro simplicity may appeal to diehard fans, secondhand sellers have been flocking to newer tech.

Yesterday a new reseller product launched called Backflip with a model driven by simplicity. Maker Adam Foosaner explained:

“My co-founder and I stumbled on the idea behind Backflip when moving between apartments… We should be able to sell [our electronics] in a matter of minutes by just taking a picture on our phones.”

Users go to the Blackflip website, select their device, and get a quote. The physical transaction is done for free with The UPS Store – no box or shipping label required. Drop it off or schedule a pickup and your payment is guaranteed by Backflip.

“I finally have a chance to clean out my electronics drawer. Love it!” - Hunter Hodnett noted.

Backflip’s approach might appeal to sellers who just want to get rid of some stuff quickly. Other players in this space have stretched across channels. Poshmark, which went public in January, created a whole fashionista social community around reselling. StockX and Alt are working to ride trends in alternative investments as part of their resale model.

StockX is a shining example of the growth in the reseller space. It had a record year of revenue and just closed a funding round resulting in a $3.8 billion valuation. Beyond bidding and selling, StockX delivers users a host of data like historical sales and authenticates the sneakers too. Ebay announced their own authentication program to play catch up in October.

Besides the pandemic and eCommerce growth, another reason for the resale boom is interest in sustainability. The demand is so strong that brands like Gucci are playing with their own resale models.

If you’re in the market for sustainable threads but are looking for something new, you can check out recently launched Good Garms instead. Otherwise, it might be time to…
Black hole or rocket ship?
Recently, a new launch was the talk of tech-Twitter: Bitclout.

Bitclout is a decentralized social network built on a blockchain. The concept seems noble: an open-sourced platform that rewards creators, not a company, for contributions through creator coins. Initial excitement was matched with early skepticism:

“I was waiting for something like this! This is amazing 🤩” - Asad Ali

“Is this a black hole for bitcoin?” - Derrick Guanzon

Many online were put off by Bitclout scraping Twitter profiles of prominent members, baiting them with pre-created accounts (@elonmusk’s coin is over $86K but he has yet to officially join). Others are frustrated that the project is absent from Github and the like. The unknown makers, who go by the pseudonym Diamondhands, have said the code will be open-sourced after an audit is concluded within the next few weeks.

Investors are also cautioning others to be careful with their investments. Right now you can put Bitcoin in to buy more $Bitclout, but you can’t withdraw it.

However, early adopters point to Bitclout’s list of backers, like Sequoia and a16z, to support the whole concept. They also point out that letting people withdraw too early could cause users to invest and bail too quickly.

Are you getting into Bitclout early or in the wait-and-see camp? Share what you think on the launch page.
10 design tools to make life easy
Some people have such a great blend of right and left brain that they made themselves a career in graphic design. The rest of us have Canva.

Even so, our mockups and landing pages often need a touch more to tell a story — illustrations with diverse characters, 3D images, and even just blobs.

We’ve seen a huge number of resources recently to help with quick design solutions, whether you’re a marketer, a designer saving time, or a bootstrapping maker crafting a pitch.

This list is about to save you some design time.

Blobs 2.0 - Simple blob generator

Presentations by Pitch - 50+ templates for your Pitch

Float - Tool to transform your static artwork into moving creations

Amigos - Hand-drawn illustrations of characters that are remixable

Haikei - Tool to generate unique SVG shapes, backgrounds, and patterns

MagicPattern Toolbox - Toolkit of patterns, gradients, and, yup, more blobs

Studyum 3D Icons - 28 customizable 3D icons

THINGS - 3D customizable device mockups

Removal.ai - AI-powered background removal

Sensa Emoji - Free, vector, and open-source emoji set

And once you’ve made it through the list, take a break with this game to identify fonts.
7 productivity tools you've never heard of
This Monday has us thinking about the things that take more time or brainpower than they should.

You know the feeling: “Why is this SO hard?!”

We put together seven new products that make getting through the most standard parts of your day easier.

Logging In: Idenati keeps all of your online services (banking, developer tools, streaming, etc.) in one place.

Reading: TLDR This summarizes any piece of text into concise, digestible content.

Finding: Clipboard Pro gives you a place to put your most-used content, like your CV, for easy access.

Journaling: Ponder makes daily journaling quick through a browser extension — click it open and free-write or use the prompts.

Pasting: Text Blaze lets you save snippets of copy, formulas, etc. and insert them anywhere with keyboard shortcuts.

Tracking: Lunatask is an all-in-one to-do list, habit tracker, and pomodoro timer with Zapier integrations.

Zooming: Zapp Pad is a Zoom keyboard created by a maker and dad who noticed his kid’s teacher would benefit from hotkeys while managing two dozen kindergarteners.

Start your day by getting all your apps and logins together.
Around is back
It was a year ago that Around launched, right when WFH was just becoming the norm for office-goers.

Since the start, this nex-gen video call tool grabbed attention with a better video UI. Its slick, AI-based framing feature keeps video minimal and floats to free up your screen — like smart profile photos versus Brady Bunch boxes.

Now the company has raised a $10M Series A and launched Around 2.0 with its newest feature: The EchoTerminator.

The EchoTerminator eliminates echo and also the wince we all make when multiple devices in one space start to screech. Combined with previously released features like background noise filtering and voice proximity detection, Around is working to replace traditional conference room hardware. That would be a big benefit to the "new normal" post-pandemic, where many of us will continue working remotely.

For the audio experts, maker Dominik Zane explains: “Around’s EchoTerminator engine completely solves the hybrid-remote challenge: sophisticated ultrasonic signaling, complex DSP algorithms, and real-time audio synchronization ensures that all microphones and speakers are enabled concurrently, meaning everyone is heard perfectly.”

The stack of WFH tools is still growing, with recent pro-collaboration additions including Sims-esque virtual offices, asynchronous recording tools and slack standups, video call networking, and automated team building.

Let us know what products have become your WFH essentials.

Now, come with me if you want to get rid of that mic echo.
Top Launches:HyptoHyptoOpenVCOpenVCArk7Ark7
Deepfake Grandma
Deepfakes are no longer just for Gen Z and millennials perfecting their Tom Cruise impressions. They’re for your great-nana, too!

Your family’s old black and white photos are the latest to undergo deepfake transformation thanks to a partnership by MyHeritage, a family ancestry service, and D-ID, a company specializing in video reenactment with deep learning. Deep Nostalgia™ uses several drivers that consist of a fixed sequence of movements and gestures. When you upload your photo (for free), it applies those drivers to a face (one per photo) in your still to create a short video that you can share with your friends and family. In the words of MyHeritage, you can “experience your family history like never before.” You got that right.

As always, deepfake tech isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The word “creepy” got its fair share of use from a handful of Product Hunt commenters. But for other audiences, Deep Nostalgia hit that sweet spot, which we expect is exactly what MyHeritage and D-ID were looking for:

“Great feature! It also helps to "connect" with late relatives, that we never had the chance to meet. Great thumb up!” – Anna Costalonga

“AWESOME - was able to reanimate my dead mom and grandma :)” – Bibi Lauri Raven

“Wow, talk about hitting an emotional chord with this one. Off to search for some photos now!” – Harry Duran

If you’re thinking “It’s just like Hogwarts!” there are plenty of those comments too, and if you really want to go full in on this fantasy (“You’re a wizard, Harry!”), consider pairing your new animated bw photo with a Meural Canvas. 👻

Once you’ve brought your ancestors into 2021 with Deep Nostalgia you can have more fun with deepfakes with these (use responsibly):

Impressions – An app that lets you create your own celebrity deepfakes in minutes.

Parodist – Send your loved ones a funny and unique video congratulations.

Deepfakes web – Deepfakes as a service.

And for those of you anti deepfake warriors (the world needs you):

Sensity – A deepfake detection platform.

Amber Video – Video authentication to combat deepfakes.
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