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Hiten Shah

Product News - Your daily dose of product news

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Product News is the quickest way to get your daily dose of the latest in Product 💪 all from one place. Includes over 50 (and growing!) of the best sources for all things Product. Handpicked tweets, blog posts and other Product resources are posted throughout the day.

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Hiten Shah
Maker
Today, I’m excited to launch a little product I’ve always wanted to exist. Think of it as a Techmeme for Product News. A way to stay up to date with what’s going on in the world of Product without having to visit dozens of website every day. Curated by me 🤓 This all came about because of a tweet from @mubashariqbal that I eagerly responded to. He wanted to get out of the cold weather and hack on something, so I offered him a ticket to fly to San Francisco. He didn’t take me up on the plane ticket. Instead he decided to build Product News out based on an idea I’ve had for far too long, since I began curating content. Please share your favorite Product related blogs and twitter accounts in the comments. We’ve got over 50 and are adding new sources daily.
Mubashar Iqbal
Maker
@hnshah One of my goals this year was to work with more makers to launch their ideas. I didn't think it would be @hnshah, but Twitter has a magical way of making things happen that you didn't think were possible 😀 It was great to work with Hiten and Marie on building Product News, they have a great passion for anything product related and it shows any time you're talking with them.
Walter Chen
@hnshah @mubashariqbal @marie_prokopets i love you all's dedication to sourcing up-and-coming writers and content creators, and i know i've personally been a beneficiary, so thank you! highlighting fresh voices is such an important part of moving the story forward. could you talk about the tools you've built on the backend that we don't see to make curation easier?
Hiten Shah
Maker
It's pretty simple. @mubashariqbal built a three part system: 1. Sources: We are able to add sources. Blogs via RSS, Medium Authors, Medium Publications and Twitter accounts. 2. Queue: Posts and tweets from the sources are added to a queue and they can be rejected or published. There is an option to edit the post headline and description as well. 3. Public Page: This is the front-end interface everyone sees. Once a post is published, it shows up on the public page at the top.
Mubashar Iqbal
Maker
@hnshah Just to add a little more technical detail: The system was custom built using the Laravel PHP framework. We use RSS feeds, Twitter and Medium APIs to gather the content for curation. // @smalter
Walter Chen
@hnshah @mubashariqbal that curation tool sounds useful! @zhu_mink and i built www.keysheet.io, which curates expert reviews of cryptocurrencies. our data set that we curate from is very similar, which is specific individuals on twitter, medium and personal websites. currently, our curation tools are: - we add twitter handles to twitter lists and search those lists with copy-pasted search queries. - we add medium sites and personal websites to a google custom search engine we created. we have to 'pull' reviews via search, then if we find a good one, we enter them manually into an airtable form we created which stores it into our airtable base (which is actually the production db for the site). @mubashariqbal i will dm you. would love to talk more about the curation backend to what you built if you're game!
Joe Tannorella
@hnshah @smalter @mubashariqbal Great work guys. I have a question on your stack. (heads' up – I love both Laravel and Wordpress). I'd love to know why you didn't choose Wordpress, did you consider it at all, or go straight to Laravel? Or re-use old code from another project? Wordpress via REST could have been a good happy-medium. I'm genuinely curious, because I've been making the Laravel vs. Wordpress call quite a bit lately.
Mubashar Iqbal
Maker
@hnshah @smalter @joetannorella I guess I made the decision here, I went with Laravel mostly for the backend system that I knew I wanted to build. The aggregation of content from a variety of different sources (Medium, Twititer, RSS) and more in the future that we don't about yet. I also wanted a very simple interface to review and publish or reject that content. Could it have been done in Wordpress, yes! I've built similar things in Wordpress in the past too, but I feel like the aggregation and administration would have been more complicated.
Marie Prokopets
Maker
Hiten has a special superpower when it comes to curating content. He always seems to find the best content about Product (and just about everything else). Typically we have to wait to see it until the weekly Product Habits newsletter or when @hnshah decides to share it on his Twitter account. Now, the wait is over. If you're looking for Product content on a daily basis, go to Product News 😺
Ross Mayfield
I already enjoy Hiten’s other newsletter and feeds, and this focus on Product News is an easy habit to aspire to. I'd like to see some signals that help selected items stand out.
Hiten Shah
Maker
@ross thanks! I'm curious about what signals you want to see.
Graham Robson
Yeah - been a long term consumer of Hiten's high quality email list of all things product. The new capability is great, but where's the search, classifications - so we can use as a research resource. Otherwise it's 'snapchat for product news' - maybe that what is intended?
Hiten Shah
Maker
@graham_robson I've looked into things like search and classifications. Even done user testing on prototypes with features like that. A small percentage of folks come back regularly for that type of depth. Currently Product News solves the most ubiquitous problem that exists with content, finding stuff worth reading.
Hiten Shah
Maker
@graham_robson Additionally, if you want to check out an older archive of links that is searchable and classified, the product habits team and I did put this together a while ago https://airtable.com/universe/ex... but we haven't updated it in a bit.
Graham Robson
@hnshah Many Thanks! This is very good of you to provide. It's also interesting to know that there isn't so much of a demand for more than a now-term resource. It certainly more habit forming to find the time to read, as you might miss something. I can see how it can encourage your own curation processes.
Pradip Khakhar
Love the story and the power of the connected world we live in. I remember that tweet. Congrats on the launch, looking forward to some great content!
Mubashar Iqbal
Maker
@pradipcloud Thanks, rage tweeting on Twitter about the weather worked out well :)
Andrew Askins
There isn't a great place to find product articles at the moment. They sort of fit into Designer News, or Hacker News or Growth Hackers. They kind fit into Indie Hackers. But all of those sites have a slightly different focus. Couple that with how baller Hiten's newsletter is and I'm excited this exists!
Hiten Shah
Maker
@andrewaskins I'm excited too! It was fun building an idea I've always wanted to see exist.
Brian Wang
This is probably the most on brand product I've ever seen from you, Hiten! Congrats - definitely signing up for this to get a download from your brain to mine =)
Hiten Shah
Maker
@brianmwang couldn't have said it better myself!
Katherine Smith
It's very useful thank you!!!
Marie Prokopets
Maker
@katherine_smith1 Thanks so much Katherine!
Claude Schneider
I’ve always appreciated Hiten’s curated content around Product, so having a more timely and more full resource is good. Will have to see how this works out over time - right now I only see 18 articles from a mobile device, with no search/categorisation. It’s not clear if it only shows the latest handful, whether you’ll have access to older articles, or how to find relevant articles on a specific topic later on. I’m a fan of GrowthHacker as all their content is searchable, so it’s a great research tool, rather than having to constantly check-in to see new content as it flies by.
Hiten Shah
Maker
@claudeschneider thanks for taking a look and sharing your thoughts. This was a side project and we'll be determining where we take it next based on feedback!
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