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Instagram launched a new messaging app! 🚨
This newsletter was brought to you byGetViktorInstagram launched a new messaging app! 🚨
“Asking folks to install another app is a short term painful thing, but if we wanted to focus on serving this [use case] well, we had to build a dedicated and focused experience.” – Mark Zuckerberg (2014)
Instagram just launched a dedicated messaging app. The experimental app is called Direct, and it's available today on Android and iOS.
The courageous decision to launch a standalone messaging app could go down in history as one of the all-time greats, right alongside Apple removing the headphone jack, Hype pivoting to HQ Trivia, and Tesla expanding into iPhone accessories.
Only time will tell if Instagram's messaging aspirations will work out as planed. In the short-term, the only true measure of success is if 3 months from now, Facebook tries to acquire them again.
Instagram just launched a dedicated messaging app. The experimental app is called Direct, and it's available today on Android and iOS.
The courageous decision to launch a standalone messaging app could go down in history as one of the all-time greats, right alongside Apple removing the headphone jack, Hype pivoting to HQ Trivia, and Tesla expanding into iPhone accessories.
Only time will tell if Instagram's messaging aspirations will work out as planed. In the short-term, the only true measure of success is if 3 months from now, Facebook tries to acquire them again.
Highlight
Buffer just published a new post highlighting 7 key insights for building a career in marketing, including tips from Helena Price, Alexis Ohanian, and Tim Ferriss.
“Figure out what you’re good at and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward.” – Naval Ravikant (Tip #6)
“Figure out what you’re good at and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward.” – Naval Ravikant (Tip #6)
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We asked 34 customers what Viktor does for them. Not one said chatbot.

They kept using words like colleague, coworker, team member. One CEO called it the glue holding their e-commerce business together, which is a lot, but also… you see why. It lives in Slack and plugs into 3,000+ tools, so instead of jumping between tabs, you just ask for the thing. Pull Stripe against HubSpot, check Sentry alerts, spin up a campaign brief, build a landing page, send a report upstairs. It all happens there.
It has already hit top 5 on Product Hunt with 130 comments, is SOC 2 certified, and your data does not train models.One user said it was the first time AI felt like a real coworker, which is either exciting or slightly concerning depending on your week.
The Leaderboard
Monday through Friday
Our ultra-fast Daily: Three takes on new products. Yesterday’s top ten launches. That’s it.