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.
How to pitch your product with GIFs 💰😎
GIFs: moving images, a simple concept that's now the universal language of human intelligence. Research likely shows a direct correlation between the rise of GIFs and people's decreasing attention span on the internet.
The question is, can you describe your product in a GIF? It's easier said than done, but here are some of the best examples we've found:
• Oristand's portable and super affordable standing desk
• Blockhead's clever solution to your MacBook charger not fitting
• Papier's beautiful note-taking app in your browser
• Highly's Medium-style highlighting in every app and website
• Zoom, Enhance! which turns your regular photos into zoomable GIFs
The question is, can you describe your product in a GIF? It's easier said than done, but here are some of the best examples we've found:
• Oristand's portable and super affordable standing desk
• Blockhead's clever solution to your MacBook charger not fitting
• Papier's beautiful note-taking app in your browser
• Highly's Medium-style highlighting in every app and website
• Zoom, Enhance! which turns your regular photos into zoomable GIFs
The best app. 📱🔥
A week ago we launched Ask Product Hunt, a community-powered product search engine. Since then, many of you have submitted recommendations for questions like the best time-tracking software, best podcasting app, and best app for writing on the Mac.
Below are some of the questions with the most product recommendations so far:
🤔 What are must-have Chrome Extensions? (79 Recs)
🤔 What subscription services do you pay for and why? (70 Recs)
🤔 What is your favorite macOS menubar app? (59 Recs)
With 157 product recommendations, this is the most popular question so far.
Below are some of the questions with the most product recommendations so far:
🤔 What are must-have Chrome Extensions? (79 Recs)
🤔 What subscription services do you pay for and why? (70 Recs)
🤔 What is your favorite macOS menubar app? (59 Recs)
With 157 product recommendations, this is the most popular question so far.
Introducing: Ask Product Hunt 🚀
Today, we’re introducing Ask Product Hunt, a new community-powered product search engine.
As with many things we build, the idea was inspired by you. 🤗 Every day, people ask for product recommendations, often cc'ing @ProductHunt on Twitter. Now you can ask the community directly.
For the past 4 weeks, we've been sharing recommendations with a small group of beta testers in response to questions like:
📱 What's one app you use a lot, that most people don't know about?
✏️ What's the best app for writing on MacOS?
✈️ What's the easiest way to create GIFs for the web?
Check it out! We'll be featuring some of the most popular questions and recommendations throughout the month.
As with many things we build, the idea was inspired by you. 🤗 Every day, people ask for product recommendations, often cc'ing @ProductHunt on Twitter. Now you can ask the community directly.
For the past 4 weeks, we've been sharing recommendations with a small group of beta testers in response to questions like:
📱 What's one app you use a lot, that most people don't know about?
✏️ What's the best app for writing on MacOS?
✈️ What's the easiest way to create GIFs for the web?
Check it out! We'll be featuring some of the most popular questions and recommendations throughout the month.
BuzzFeed takes on Amazon… sort of 🚚
Last week, the President was in a truck. An hour later BuzzFeed wrote an article. It went viral. A day later they turned it into a children's book: The President and the Big Boy Truck Book.
But this isn’t the first product from the cat listicle website. BuzzFeed also sells hot glue cheese guns, viral cookbooks, and even political garbage cans. 😳
Their movement toward commerce demonstrates a growing trend as advertising-driven businesses diversify and explore new revenue streams. Medium’s trying it with subscriptions. Twitch is starting to sell games. Facebook launched a Craigslist competitor.
We can’t wait to see what happens next.
But this isn’t the first product from the cat listicle website. BuzzFeed also sells hot glue cheese guns, viral cookbooks, and even political garbage cans. 😳
Their movement toward commerce demonstrates a growing trend as advertising-driven businesses diversify and explore new revenue streams. Medium’s trying it with subscriptions. Twitch is starting to sell games. Facebook launched a Craigslist competitor.
We can’t wait to see what happens next.
Sneak peek at YC Demo Day 🚀
Thousands of aspiring founders apply to Y Combinator for every batch but only ~100 startups are admitted. Today is graduation day for the first half of the Winter 2017 batch and we got the inside scoop on some of the companies that'll be pitching. 🎉
The most upvoted company of the batch (so far) is Tetra, which automatically takes notes for you by dialing into your phone calls. Not far behind is Floyd, the “Heroku for deep learning".
There's also Niles, a Slack app that turns your chats into a live wiki, and Tress, a popular app for discovering and sharing hairstyle inspiration and tips. And of course, companies are applying artificial intelligence to just about everything (like solving acne and running a hedge fund that buys art).
For more, follow the Y Combinator Winter 2017 collection. We'll keep it updated as more companies are announced at Demo Day. 👀
The most upvoted company of the batch (so far) is Tetra, which automatically takes notes for you by dialing into your phone calls. Not far behind is Floyd, the “Heroku for deep learning".
There's also Niles, a Slack app that turns your chats into a live wiki, and Tress, a popular app for discovering and sharing hairstyle inspiration and tips. And of course, companies are applying artificial intelligence to just about everything (like solving acne and running a hedge fund that buys art).
For more, follow the Y Combinator Winter 2017 collection. We'll keep it updated as more companies are announced at Demo Day. 👀
Turn your website into wallpaper 🖥✨ 👀
Fun fact: The average American spends more than 7 hours looking at a screen, so let's treat our screens with some love. Upgrade your scenery with these apps. 🖼
🕘 The Padbury Clock is a minimalist screensaver for Mac
💻 Desktopr lets you turn any website into your Mac wallpaper
🌌 WLPPR mobile wallpapers come from satellite imagery
📽 SaveHollywood plays movies & trailers as your screensaver
🦁 Live Desktop makes your wallpaper come alive with animations
🕶 Black is a stunning wallpaper series that uses just the color black
If you have a dual monitor (Apple) setup, Twelve South creates beautiful accessories designed exclusively for Apple. Start by checking out their Dual-Screen Wallpapers (pictured above). 💻🖥😻
🕘 The Padbury Clock is a minimalist screensaver for Mac
💻 Desktopr lets you turn any website into your Mac wallpaper
🌌 WLPPR mobile wallpapers come from satellite imagery
📽 SaveHollywood plays movies & trailers as your screensaver
🦁 Live Desktop makes your wallpaper come alive with animations
🕶 Black is a stunning wallpaper series that uses just the color black
If you have a dual monitor (Apple) setup, Twelve South creates beautiful accessories designed exclusively for Apple. Start by checking out their Dual-Screen Wallpapers (pictured above). 💻🖥😻
NEW: Y Combinator Startup School 🎓
or over a decade, Y Combinator has been one of the most influential forces in the startup community. Without it, reddit, Airbnb, Dropbox, and hundreds of other startups may not exist.
Today, YC introduced Startup School, a 10-week massively open online course (MOOC) to teach you how to start a startup. While helpful for the industry, Startup School isn’t a “charity”. They’re cleverly expanding their platform further down the funnel, to educate and identify tomorrow’s great companies. Well played. 😊
Join the conversation with Sam Altman and signup for Startup School here... or just read this startup f*&$ing advice.
Today, YC introduced Startup School, a 10-week massively open online course (MOOC) to teach you how to start a startup. While helpful for the industry, Startup School isn’t a “charity”. They’re cleverly expanding their platform further down the funnel, to educate and identify tomorrow’s great companies. Well played. 😊
Join the conversation with Sam Altman and signup for Startup School here... or just read this startup f*&$ing advice.
Key startup takeaway from the Oscars 🌝💡
The big winner of the 89th Academy Awards was La La Land, taking home 6 Oscars, and briefly winning Best Picture (there was a mixup). That honor ended up going to Moonlight, a deserving winner.
What you can learn from Moonlight's win: It is absolutely critical to name your startup after cross-platform emoji. Think of: 🏠🎉, 🍑, 👻, 🐐, 🧀 — these are all app names you can communicate with simple emoji on iOS, Android, Twitter, and Gmail. As such, congrats to all those involved with the 🌝💡 win. Honorable mention to 🦁 and 👽🌍.
Now, get started with a productive week by browsing some of these:
🍿 Leanflix's powerful filters help you find the perfect movie
🍿 Caption makes finding the right subtitled super easy
🍿 Strema is like your own (self-hosted) personal Netflix
🍿 Reelgood is the one central guide for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO
🍿 MovieMogul shows you the all-time best films you have't seen
What you can learn from Moonlight's win: It is absolutely critical to name your startup after cross-platform emoji. Think of: 🏠🎉, 🍑, 👻, 🐐, 🧀 — these are all app names you can communicate with simple emoji on iOS, Android, Twitter, and Gmail. As such, congrats to all those involved with the 🌝💡 win. Honorable mention to 🦁 and 👽🌍.
Now, get started with a productive week by browsing some of these:
🍿 Leanflix's powerful filters help you find the perfect movie
🍿 Caption makes finding the right subtitled super easy
🍿 Strema is like your own (self-hosted) personal Netflix
🍿 Reelgood is the one central guide for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO
🍿 MovieMogul shows you the all-time best films you have't seen
Email apps that make life more pleasant 💌
Fun fact: "Email" is one of the most common searched queries on Product Hunt. Fortunately, there are quite a few products to help make email less painful.
• See who's opening your emails with Yesware
• Block people from tracking you with PixelBlock
• Make introductions a breeze with Better BCC'd
• Automatically follow up with prospects with If No Reply
• Know the sender's company with Gmail Sender Icons
• Easily change the subject of any email with Rename Email
• Use this minimal site to find the perfect Canned Emails
• Write perfect emails using artificial intelligence with Boomerang
See more useful, time-saving products in this Email Apps collection. 💌
Standing desks for everyone! 🙏
Standing Desks: You've seen people use them, thought of getting one, maybe you use one. We've seen a lot of these chair-less innovations on Product Hunt, including a standing desk for kids, a $299 electric adjustable table with a memory pad, and a (very popular) $25 foldable desk.
Check out the full collection of standing desks on Product Hunt. 🚶🐱
Check out the full collection of standing desks on Product Hunt. 🚶🐱
