At Product Hunt, we try to limit the number of team meetings we host each week. As a distributed team across 7 timezones, we love to utilize asynchronous communication tools like Loom to help keep connected without getting Zoom fatigue.

Don't get us wrong, we haven't eradicated meetings entirely and they serve an important purpose, but we try to avoid *pointless meetings.* By pointless, we mean those that could have easily been an email or async update.

Luckily we're not the only ones who like to work this way. There are tons of great tools out there aiming to make async even more accessible.

Here are a few recent launches that could help reduce the number of Zoom calls your team needs each week:

💬 Bubbles: Capture screen recordings with audio or text conversation
🍇 Grapevine: Short one-way video updates to replace a daily standup call
🦸🏼‍♀️ SuperNormal: Send synchronous video updates with AI summaries
🤚 All Hands: Record and send frequent video updates to your team on Slack
🌎 Remote Workly: Async video meetings with searchable transcriptions
🗣 RealTalk: Async video updates for remote teams

If you do find yourself stuck on a pointless meeting, you can always fake a bad connection to make your excuses and follow up async after. 😉

Nominations are now open for the Annual Golden Kitty Awards.🏆

Don't forget to nominate your favorite products from 2020, and register to attend our first-ever Virtual Awards Ceremony with host Casey Newton and special guests. (Registrations are limited on a first come first basis.)