The Roundup

2019 was the year of the “sober curious” movement.

We saw product launches of all stripes in this space, from Kin (a non-boozy alternative to alcohol) to Haus (a low-ABV option) to a cannabis-infused social tonic.

So it’s appropriate that there’s now tools that promote wellness around alcohol consumption. Notably, Less launched last week to help you become more mindful about drinking. The app was created by the makers of Zero, an app the lets you track your fasting.

How it works: As you log drinks through the app, your daily intake affects a weather simulation where you’re on a metaphorical sailboat. To keep “skies sunny and the wind at your back,” you have to stay under your alcohol limit. The app then organizes your drinking data in graphs so you can watch things like how many drinks you have per week and how much money you spend on alcohol over the course of a year. There’s also a “Tips” tab that has a selection of drinking-related articles, mocktail recipes and advice from medical experts. 🙌

Some early reviews from the PH community:

“I’m pumped for this. Use Zero religiously.” - Justin

“I really appreciate this app and I wish I had a product like this when I decided to curb my drinking a few years ago.” - Zak

“Just embarking on dry January. Less is going to be in my pocket and on my side“ - Carrie

Would you use this? 10 points to whoever has smooth sailing for the rest of the year. ⛵️

“Although there are some robocall blocking solutions out there, most of them just flag suspicious calls by adding something like ‘Scam Likely’ to the caller ID, but they don't actually stop the calls from ever (annoyingly) ringing your phone. Rather than selling vaccinations, they're selling medication.“ - Pepper Maker Ethan Naluz

Pepper is the latest product attempting to solve robocalls, due to the fact that there are over five billion robocalls each in month in the U.S.. And this number is set to hit 62 billion (in total) by the end of 2019. Why? Because robocalling is a cheap and easy hustle. Every successful spam call brings in an average of $430.

So Pepper works like an email spam filter.

“Instead, of warning you that a call *might* a robocaller, Pepper blocks robocalls from ever ringing your phone in the first place, so you don’t even get call notifications unless they’re confirmed to be from a human.” - Ethan

According to Ethan, not a single robocall has gotten past Pepper’s technology. The service currently works in the U.S. with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, and the company says it will expand internationally if there is enough demand. Would you use this?

It’s worth highlighting a few other clever products in the space, which all of their own approach to blocking unwanted, spammy calls. Mostly notably, there’s RoboKiller, an app which has devised a smart SEO strategy to get in front of folks looking for a solution.

According to the predictive trends newsletter Glimpse, 89% of RoboKiller’s traffic comes from search, but searches for ‘RoboKiller’ only account for about .5% of traffic. Instead, RoboKiller uses landing pages for individual phone numbers (the company has created about one million of them) that people commonly search after getting a robocall. Using this approach, the company’s site visits have gone from 375,000 in May of this year to 2.5 million in October.

A few other options to block those robocallers 🚫

📞 Numverify

📞 CallHero

📞 RoboStopper

It’s almost the end of 2019! Of course, you knew that already from all the end of the decade #content that’s undoubtedly in your inbox.

There are so many products we could share to wrap of the 2010s (we’re a product of this decade), but we wanted to give some love to the most upvoted products of 2019. We’ll be sharing the year’s top 25 products over the next five days, so stay tuned! First up:

25. Marketing Examples is a super useful gallery of real-world marketing examples from successful companies. It will help you improve your SEO, perfect your newsletter strategy, and grow your following on Instagram.

“Invaluable modern marketing lessons - the only marketing newsletter I subscribe to actually.” - Pete

24. Tesla Cybertruck launched in November ( with a bang) and we’re still thinking about buying one. The $39,000 electric pickup truck is designed to look like a sports car but definitely looks like it belongs on Mars.

“It feels like Tesla is the Apple of the car industry. Right now it feels strange and unfamiliar, then suddenly other manufacturers will start to move towards a similar aesthetic and it will be the norm.” - Manny

23. Exploding Topics is an aggregator for trending topics like health, business, marketing and fashion, among others. The tool scrapes the web for what’s blowing up right now, sourcing from millions of data points.

“Wow. That’s like a pre-curated Google Trends on steroids.” - Dan

22. UserGuiding is a nifty no-code tool that helps product teams create interactive manuals that showcase how a product works.

“Although we are a technology-focused team, we decided to use UserGuiding because of their smooth, easy solution. We do not need to deal with complicated user guiding development any more.” - Osman

21. Product Resources List is a huuuge list of over 250 free product management resources. The idea is to help PMs save time in their day-to-day responsibilities.

“Incredible resource for people who want to know different aspects of product management.“ - Abid

To get the rest of the top products from this year, subscribe to the Product Hunt Daily here. 👈

We love end of the year lists. So obviously we were excited (giddy) to dig into Apple’s Top Charts of 2019, aka a series of lists on the App Store that highlight the most downloaded apps this year. 👀

Many familiar apps topped the “free” chart, including YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Messenger, Gmail, Netflix, Facebook and Google Maps, Amazon, DoorDash, WhatsApp, FaceApp, Uber, YOLO, Hulu, Venmo, Bitmoji and Google Chrome.

Among the top paid apps sat Facetune, AutoSleep Track Sleep, Touch Retouch, Procreate Pocket, Sky Guide, Scanner Pro, kirakira+, Forest, Camera+ 2, WaterMinder and Things 3, among others.

Apple also highlighted the app trend of the year, which was storytelling. These apps — things like Anchor, Wattpad, Unfold (which Squarespace recently bought), Steller, Canva and Spark Camera — inspired people record their “memories, dreams, images and voices” more than ever before. 🗣

And of course we’d be remiss if we didn’t shout out the app of the year, which one Product Hunt member described as an “instant buy.” 🙌

Deutsche Telekom (aka T-Mobile’s parent company) likes the color magenta. In fact, the company’s lawyers have sent Lemonade, the AI insurance startup, a letter ordering them to stop using the color magenta (which Lemonade uses in their brand and product). 😬

For context, Deutsche Telekom has a trademark on “magenta” and has gone after others (like AT&T, Engadget and aspiring watchmakers on Indiegogo) over the pink shade before (TechCrunch called them “trademark trolls“).

“Sounds like something a Disney villain would do, so you can imagine how c-r-a-z-y it was to discover this is real life.” - Lemonade Software Engineer Itamar Kestenbaum

In retaliation, Itamar decided to make sure the web at large stays Deutsche Telekom compliant. Last week, Pink-Out launched to “un-pink” the web against the company.

The Product Hunt community took to the comments to echo the sentiment #Freethepink.

“No one have the rights to own a certain color. Not even T-Mobile.” - Yuval

“Love it when people actually take their time to play the game!” - Dominik

“While I don't object to McDonalds owning the trademark to a big yellow M, I really don't want them to be able to block other restaurants from using yellow or red at all. I'm not sure how a company can have the rights to do it. This extension is such a cool way to deliver them this message.” - Christine

A few weeks ago, Instagram announced that it was going to start removing likes on certain accounts in attempts to “depressurize” the app. Some people (like Nicki Minaj) say they’ll stop posting to Instagram if likes go away, and the Product Hunt community had mixed feelings. 🤔

“Honestly, I will post even more now. I tested this feature during my vacation in Brazil and not having this ‘like’ count as an instrument for validation was actually very refreshing.” - Samuel

“Instagram without likes is basically a shared Dropbox” - Allan

“I think it's a good move keeping anxiety and other mental aspects that was associated with like counts.” - Akash

While the removal of likes may make the Instagram experience healthier for the average users, the influencer marketing industry, meme accounts and small businesses — all of which rely on the “likes” engagement metric — could take a hit. 👀

But what would the internet look like without “likes“ at all? We’re talking Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

Last week, a browser extension called ‘Hide Likes Everywhere’ launched on Product Hunt to hide likes and “other vanity metrics” in order to help users focus more on authenticity (versus approval) online.

“By hiding others' likes and followers, you can avoid comparing yourself to others and become a more independent thinker by using your own judgment rather than defaulting to what everyone else thinks. In the beginning, the absence of all those metrics may feel strange and inconvenient. You'll notice just how much we've come to rely on them. But stick with it, and you'll discover that you're better off without them.“ -Maker DK the Human 

Would you use this?

And for those who want to take an even bigger step towards fighting social media anxiety, we recommend trying out Feedless or Forest.

PayPal made its largest acquisition last week.

The online payments company bought promo code-finder Honey for $4 billion, betting that the Chrome extension and mobile product will give PayPal a leg up in deal discovery. 💸

A brief history: LA-based Honey was founded in 2012 and has flown somewhat under the radar since its launch. But early adopters quickly “got” Honey’s value — it saved them money while shopping and made googling promo codes a thing of the past.

“I was buying a GoDaddy domain, Honey automatically plugged in a bunch of promo codes and tested them all out, and I saved 14 dollars on a $15 domain. I only paid $1.24!” - Izzy

“Product discovery, where the right consumer has access to the right solution at the right time, is essential. Honey has the solution that people want, now it has to make sure it reaches all the interested folk through channel partnerships.” - Manisha

Honey now has about 17 million monthly active users, who are mostly on the younger side. Similar to an affiliate marketing model, the company takes a commission from merchants when shoppers use Honey (or its rewards program Honey Gold) to make a purchase. The product has saved shoppers over $2 billion to date and generated $100 million in revenue last year. 🛍

PayPal’s plan: PayPal (which currently has 300 million users) will add Honey to its own product line, which includes millennial-minded payments app Venmo. While Honey currently works with around 30,000 merchants, PayPal works with about 24 million merchants, and will now be able to offer more targeted coupons to shoppers.

While investors have historically discounted Chrome extensions, maybe this deal will change things. Some other extensions worth checking out:

💯 Grammarly helps you type mistake-free writing

🙌 Lolli lets you earn Bitcoin when you shop online

👀 Response Viewer shows you multiple screens in one view

🗞 Reader Mode removes clutter and ads from any article

Disney’s standalone streaming service Disney+ is HERE. Folks in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands can now tap into Disney’s vault of animated classics, TV shows, and new originals, as well as content from Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic. 🎉

The streaming service plans to expand to the UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain on March 31st, 2020, and different content will be available in different countries (like Netflix).

A slew of services have entered the streaming arena lately, including HBO Max, NBC’s Peacock and Apple TV Plus. While some may be hesitant to add yet another streaming service to their life, Disney holds a certain legacy power over viewers. For families with children, it’s a gold mine. For everyone else, Disney movies are the best form of nostalgia.

FYI: Disney+ will run you $6.99 per month. 👀

Some initial thoughts from the PH community:

“I think what's interesting is that their relatively limited catalog (compared to Netflix) is an advantage for them, as I suspect their viewers repeat view a lot.” - Steven

“I like the quality over quantity approach! I also wonder how fast movies will show up on Disney+ after being shown in the theaters.” - Elena

“While I'm not super excited about having yet another separate streaming service, I do think that this one has a good price and offering. I just hope they don't keep anything in the Disney vault and actually make their full catalog eventually available.” - Jake

Will you pay for Disney+?

P.S. If you’re not into paying for streaming services at all, try Pluto.TV for a free way to flip through channels. 📺

Settle a debate for us — is it pronounced  “GIF” or “JIF”?

We love GIFs at Product Hunt (duh). For us, it’s always fun to see creative, wacky and sometimes *mischievous* GIF projects launch, making the internet a better place.

Mischief Managed recently launched and lets you goof off at work with looped GIFs, so you can play work activities like coding, Excel, etc. on your monitor to make it look like you’re working. Maker Sukhpal Saini made the project in 24 hours, complete with a clever Harry Potter-esque landing page.

“My boss has never been happier with my work.” - Daman

Startup GIFs also launched earlier this month, bringing us a collection of lighthearted, startup-themed GIFs to use in Slack channels.  These GIFs are veryyyyy relatable.

Some other fun GIF tools we love:

💯  Gifski for converting videos into high-quality GIFs

📈  Data GIF Maker by Google turns boring data into GIFs

👏  GIPHY capture lets you make GIFs by screenrecording

📕  Print a Gif turns any gif into a printable flip book

🙌  Gifrun creates GIFs from YouTube, Facebook and Instagram

📸  Easy GIF Maker lets you quickly make GIFs for photography

🔎  GIFme lets you search and send GIFs through your Mac menu bar

Adobe is riding the TikTok wave.

Starting today, Premiere Rush — Adobe’s tool for video dabblers — will support sharing videos directly to TikTok. 🤳

Some background: Adobe launched Rush, a cross-device video editing app last October to make it super easy to share online video content. The app automatically syncs all projects and edits to the cloud, as it’s geared towards making quick, high quality content. The TikTok partnership comes by way of the company’s new SDK, which is going live with five other content creation apps. In addition to Rush, you can now post videos directly to TikTok from AI app Fuse.it, all-in-one photo and video editing app PicsArt, animation app Plotaverse, and gaming capture app Medal.

TikTok users now get all of Rush’s built-in editing features, including auto-ducking, transitions, color filters, timelapse and slo-mo. They can also share any video creations to all social channels, including TikTok, straight from the app.

“We built Rush for content creators who want to shoot, edit and share wherever they are. With Rush, all your video projects sync across all your devices and you can make a complete edit on your phone if you want to. Rush was no small feat to build! We combined technologies from Adobe Premiere, After Effects and Audition into a new, easy to use interface” - Adobe Senior User Experience Design Lead Johannes Eckert

The TikTok partnership is well-timed, as the fast-growing app is quickly becoming the next big creative platform. The app itself now has over 800 million monthly active users, even though 500 million of those users use Douyin, the Chinese-language version of TikTok. With TikTok’s growth, we’re seeing a rise in TikTok-related products built on Product Hunt. In the past two weeks alone, we’ve seen Makers build a TikTok client for web and multiple analytics tools that let you detect influencers and track their stats.

At Adobe’s MAX conference today, the company also debuted a free AI-powered Photoshop camera app, Photoshop for iPad and its first augmented reality creation app.