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.
Monetizing side projects and passion plays, has been amplified by our largely socially distant new world, prompting people to explore alternative ways to safely make a living from home.
The rise of paid newsletters through products like Substack and Ghost, and more recently with Twitter's acquisition of Revue, are other examples of how content creators can monetise their audience.
Of course there are many more tools to help creators monetize their passion. Check these out:
Current pays you to stream your favorite content.
Buy Me A Coffee gives your audience a way to thank you for creating content.
Cent is a network for Universal Creative Income featuring lots of amazing artists to support.
LiveKlass is an on-demand virtual classroom platform.
Glow offers a no-code way for indie podcasts to make $ through memberships.
Drip is a Patreon competitor by Kickstarter built to back creators.
Curious Fictions is a Patreon for professional authors and writers.
Flattr is an automatic way for creators to make money from their online content.
Supercast makes podcast monetization simple by adding a paid membership to your podcast.
We were thrilled to share the award ceremony yesterday with so many of the winners and finalists. Thank you to everyone who attended and made it a truly special event.
So without further ado, here are the 2020 Golden Kitty winners in each of the 23 categories
⛱ Remote Work tool of the year: Vowel
👀 Side Project of the year: One Word Domains
🛠 Hardware product of the year: Rqaspberry Pi 400
🙀 WTF product of the year: How Bad Is Your Spotify?
🛍 Ecommerce product of the year: RetentionX
🎨 Design tool of the year: Spline
🗣 Audio and Voice product of the year: Phone Call Translator
🙅♀️ No-code tool of the year: V.One
📱 Mobile App of the year: EduDo
🔐 Privacy Focussed tool of the year: SecureFrame
💸 Fintech product of the year: Finmark
⛓ Crypto product of the year: Cent
🌈 Diversity and Inclusion product of the year: Noun Project Photos
💯 Productivity tool of the year: Fastdok
🏋️♂️ Health and Wellness product of the year: Plum Village
🌏 Community and social product of the year: Onlyfams
🌎 Social Impact product of the year: Campaign With
🤖 AI and Machine Learning product of the year: Almanac
😎 Augmented Realisty product of the year: ClipDrop
🖥 Developer tool of the year: Markup
🏆 Product of the year: Clubhouse
Check out the winners, runner ups and honorable mentions in all 23 categories here.
We also gave out two non-voting awards. Congrats to our Maker of the Lucy Guo, and Community Member of the Year, Chris Messina.
And a big thank you to our partners, Welcome, Zendesk for Startups and Capsule.
Congrats to all makers for building awesome things in 2020. 😺
You might remember the team from their Maker Story where cofounder Justin Mitchell unpacks how 1 tweet led them to raise $400K. That $400K is now $7.5M. Pretty impressive stuff.
Fun Fact: YAC started as a project during our first ever Makers Festival in 2018 where they went on to win a Silver Kitty Trophy. 🏆
YAC is a voice messaging app for remote teams allowing you to leave a voice note for your team in Slack, in a group, or in public. A kind of Slack-meets-Clubhouse scenario.
With Clubhouse itself now reportedly valued at $1B, and Twitter audio spaces gaining momentum, the social audio space is increasingly interesting to watch. Many products dropped in this space last year, we covered a number of them in this newsletter. We're excited to see how this space develops, and what launches to look out for in 2021
We are joined by the YAC team today for an AMA to discover how they went from Product Hunt Makers Festival to raising $7.5M. Join us and ask them a question.
Below are the first five categories open for voting (keep an eye out in your inbox every day this week as we announce more finalists).
⛱ Remote Work Tools
👀 Side Projects
🛠 Hardware
🙀 WTF
🛍 E-commerce
Voting starts today and closes Friday, January 22 at 11:59pm PT. Upvote your favorites here.
Look out for tomorrow’s newsletter where we’ll be sharing the finalists for the next batch of categories (Design-Tools, Audio and Voice, No-Code, Mobile-App and Privacy). In addition to lots of love from the PH community, winners will receive a prize package with custom swag and a golden kitty trophy. 😸
ICYMI we are also hosting our first-ever virtual awards ceremony on January 28, where host Casey Newton will be announcing this year's Golden Kitty winners live. Spaces are limited so reserve your spot now. Register here. 👈
This year's Golden Kitty Awards is brought in partnership with our friends at Welcome, Zendesk for Startups and Capsule.
The Golden Kitty Awards is an annual celebration of products, makers, and community members. This year we have 23 categories up for grabs, with winners of each receiving a coveted Golden Kitty trophy.
How it works: Pick your fav products across each category (the full list of categories is listed here). You can pick from any upvoted product in 2020.
You can nominate products starting TODAY until Friday, January 15th at 11:59 a.m. PT. Voting will open on Monday, January 18, as we announce the finalists in daily category drops throughout the week.
This is our 6th year running the Golden Kitty Awards, and for the first time ever, on January 28 we're hosting a live virtual awards ceremony, hosted by tech royalty, Casey Newton.
Join us for the live winner announcements, networking opportunities, special guests, and more. The first 100 to register will be able to claim an official Golden Kitty 2020 T-shirt. 🏆
Who should be a finalist? Nominate your favorites.
The Golden Kitties are brought in partnership with our friends at Welcome, Zendesk for Startups and Capsule.
Probably the most anticipated awards show of the year (Oscars who?), we’re bringing back the Golden Kitty Awards. The Golden Kitty Awards is an annual celebration of products, makers, and community members. Every year we highlight the most interesting products and prolific makers. You can see last year's winners here.
This year we’re hosting a virtual awards ceremony with more deets around nominations and even a tease on who the host is coming soon. 👀
Sign up to keep in the know.
Curious to see what's been popular? Check out these trending community-created solutions that use Notion:
1. Notion Pack - freelance documents and templates, which users can customize to their clients' brand.
2. Reports for Notion - interactive charts and tables embedded into Notion.so pages.
3. Notion Automations - automate your Notion workflows with Zapier.
4. Notion Charts - quickly generate interactive charts that are tailored for Notion's Embed blocks.
5. Bulletproof Notion Workspace - use the Bulletproof methodology in your workspace.
6. Apption for Notion - find and learn Notion friendly embeddable mini apps.
7. Notion Growth Workspace - templates for project management, SEO, fundraising, marketing, and sales.
8. Notion TrackerSuite - offers 12 productivity templates and a 10-Part Notion training course.
9. Notion E-Commerce UI Kit - a toolkit consisting of 70+ custom designed components, style guide, and more.
10. NotionMetrics - pulls important metrics from Stripe, Rescuetime, Mailchimp, Convertkit, Plaid, and Google Analytics.
And of course, Notion had its own official product launch just last month. ICYMI 👇🏻
Instead of giving the gift of WOW this year, give the gift of WTF. There are tons of hilariously crafted products and services that will make your recipient scratch their head or murmur an awkward thanks.
Here’s a list of eye-brow worthy products for last-minute gifting:
Founder Prayers - set of 4 prayer candles of your favorite tech icons. Some say sacrilegious, others say a ray of hope for your launch.
Framed Tweets - frame a tweet that started a Twitter fire.
GIFwrap - high-quality, glossy, and flat wrapping paper full of memes.
Musk on Mars - instead of gifting a lottery ticket, reserve a day you think Elon Musk will land on Mars.
Goat 2 Meeting - Surprise the office by inviting a real goat (or llama) to your next video call.
Burrito Pop - described as “not quite a burrito thermos, or a burrito condom, or a burrito elevator, but all of the above at the same time.” - Gizmodo
WonderSpray - a portable butt shower to enhance your bathroom experience.
Meow - a novel written for cats by cats. Gift your furry pal a book of self discovery.
Tesla Tequila - we heard you can still get it on eBay for a cool $1K or place a bid for the empty bottle at $650.
If you’re looking for other funny gifts or just need a laugh, scroll through other WTF products. Or check out the gift guide we released on Friday.
The holidays are fast approaching and there are so many things to celebrate: Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or just feeling #blessed to get through 2020.
We asked our team members and the community what’s on their wish lists this holiday season. With so many things launched this year, it's hard to pick. Here’s what the Product Hunt team chose:
👾 Emily & Jake’s pick: Wireless VR headset by Oculus Quest 2.
🎮 Aaron’s pick: Intense gaming with PS5.
🍵 Dan’s pick: Temperature-Controlled Ceramic Mug by Ember.
🎶 Gabe’s pick: Live music performances at home with Oda.
🥊 Chantelle’s pick: Fitness gaming with Quell.
🚰 Jacq’s pick: A self-cleaning water bottle called LARQ.
Make sure to check your list twice this weekend as shipping cut-off dates loom. If you're still stumped, here are a couple of other ideas for gifting (or treating yourself):
Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch - the OG handheld system is back.
Raspberry Pi 400 - a portable keyboard with a complete built-in computer.
Google Nest Audio - all new smart speakers from Google.
Apple Watch SE - the new, more affordable watch from Apple.
Sleepbuds 2 by Bose - headphones that are optimized for sleeping.
Gift a Business with Shopify in their Exchange Marketplace.
Petcube Cam - is a smart camera for your pet with a built-in vet chat.
Have an item in mind that didn’t make the list? Let community members know in the discussion board. 👇
As the OG of social media, Myspace elicits nostalgia for that simpler time on the internet when Myspace Tom was everyones first virtual friend. If you’re keen to relive the memories, 18-year old An created SpaceHey.
SpaceHey is a fully functional Myspace-like site where users can have fun, meet friends, or be creative. From its blue and white exterior, to the “I built this using HTML” vibes, SpaceHey feels like a living time capsule.
Now, if you’re doing the math, 18-year old An did not have a Myspace account when he was 3.
“I found a couple of other websites from that era of the internet and I really love the feeling of the Web back then. There is no comparable place to Myspace online nowadays, so that's why I built SpaceHey!” - An, Maker.
2020 has been A YEAR, and sometimes it’s nice to kick back and have some fun with a little nostalgia. We caught major feels with this one, and we were't the only ones. Here are some community reactions from An's launch day post:
“This certainly brings back lots of memories, thank you for building it!” - Steven
“All tears here thinking back to how beautiful the internet was back in the early 2000s.” - Simon
“I feel emotional when I look at this site. It was the first community I joined back then.” - Fajar
If this product took you on a trip down memory lane, make sure to check out Retro Widget and Retro Widget 2 which blasts users back to the 2000s using their iPhone and Apple Watch. Snake 2 anyone?
