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Our ultra-fast Daily: Three takes on new products. Yesterday’s top ten launches. That’s it.
Today NBCUniversal entered the streaming war to compete with Netflix, Disney+, Amazon, Hulu, and many other incumbents.
They're calling it Peacock, named after their colorful logo. If you're an Xfinity X1 or Flex customer, you can now stream 30 Rock, The Tonight Show, Parks and Recreation, Law and Order, and most importantly, The Office.
As much as we all love The Office, it’s hard to get excited about yet another streaming service. So, we’d like to highlight a few lockdown-friendly alternatives you may not know about:
Pluto streams over 250 channels and 1,000's of movies for free.
Rheo is the TikTok of internet videos.
Blackpills produces original TV shows, 100% free to watch.
Quibi delivers quick-bite original content.
Thripy will transport you across the world, even when you’re in lock down.
Neverthink TV aggregates the best “TV of the internet”
As most of the world remains indoors (for good reason), we’ve seen the Maker community rally to relieve cabin fever and loneliness with a wave of new virtual-friendly products and services.
If you read the digest two weeks ago, you will remember YUR, a virtual watch that tracks your health stats when playing games in VR. We also covered Instagram’s exploration into co-watching parties.
While we’re all in lockdown together, we wanted to share a few more recent launches we can all enjoy together online.
🏡 Airbnb recently joined the trend by moving Experiences online, connecting hosts to new audiences remotely. You can book a magician to teach you magic tricks, learn how to cook with a Moroccan family, or even train with an Olympic athlete.
"Kudos to the Airbnb team and the hosts for creating an online experience to the people staying home and enjoy the experiences.” –Divyansh Patel
💇🏻♀️You probably need a haircut offers guided haircuts from hairstylists remotely. Alternatively, you could use Snap Camera to cover your shaggy head at your next Zoom birthday party.
“This is such a neat idea! I gave it a go yesterday and cut my husband’s hair and beard with the guidance of an amazing hairstylist.”–Aiman Batool
🎥 Vemos launched making it easy to watch movies with your friends and family. This free, open-source browser extension brings Zoom-like features to streaming services including Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Hulu, and Disney+.
"This is a great piece of work by @nolaneo, highly recommend checking it out during this insane time in the world.”–Des Traynor
📚Goodnight Zoom connects isolated seniors to families with children so they can read bed-time stories together.
“This is the most heartwarming idea I have ever seen! This is such a uniting platform - in current times more than ever.”–Anastasia Orgaz
Enter Nod. This browser extension adds quick reactions to Google Meet so you can see in real time how your friends, students or colleagues are feeling while muted. Nod attempts to recreate the subtle physical cues we all give IRL.
Founder Jamie Carr explained that the app came from an internal team need to better aid communications on remote calls, and with nearly 1M users in only 2 weeks, his team was not alone in this need.
“I built this little extension to help my team at HomeHero better communicate in larger meetings, where most of the participants were muted. Like many, we found ourselves adjusting to working remotely, and Nod was built to help us replicate some of the things that we missed in our face-to-face meetings.
I first posted this on the chrome store just two weeks ago, and since then, the tool has reached close to a million users. While it has found itself inside teams at Netflix, Pinterest and the NY Times, many of the 900,000+ users have been schools, universities and other educators who have been forced into a new world of online learning.”
Let us know what you think.
Hims — the startup that sells self-care products to men, including hair loss prevention and erectile dysfunction remedies — launched a group therapy service this week. 🙏
Why? Stress and anxiety have become an everyday part of life for a lot of people right now, and Hims wants to help people handle hard-to-talk-about-issues, as they have previously with their line of wellness products.
“The world has been turned upside down. We feel it too. In times like these, it’s vital to take care of our mental health. And because individual therapy isn’t for everyone, we’re providing access to group support sessions—available through your phone or computer,” - the company wrote on its website.
What this means in practice: Hims will provide group therapy sessions for free, where participants will learn effective strategies from experienced licensed therapists and mental health professionals. Folks can use the service and remain anonymous by using an alias, and by turning off their camera during the sessions.
Each session is capped at 15 people, and will cover things like coping with coronavirus, trouble sleeping, difficulty motivating and focusing, relationship questions, managing anxiety, mindfulness and meditation. During the session, the therapist will answer real-time questions to guide the group discussion.
“This is very smart - its great to see Hims committing to their mission in ways that don't directly drive the bottom line.” - Evan
For an additional online therapy option, check out Talkspace, where you can text or video chat (one on one) with a therapist. 👏
Today’s Daily Digest was crafted by Product Hunt and sponsored by our friends at monday.com.
Working with a remote team — whether it’s your usual setup or if you’re new to the WFH gig — can leave you with a calendar full of sync meetings, and little time for actual work. monday.com solves that. Your whole team can manage their workflows in one place, from time tracking in order to meet important deadlines, assigning project ownership, communicating easily, and automating manual work. All you have to do is check monday.com and you’ll be fully up to speed.
A look inside monday.com‘s unique features:
Keep projects moving from anywhere. With simple, code-free automations, you and your team can make sure nothing slips through the cracks. Automations put the boring stuff on autopilot to help you focus on your actual work.
Let monday.com be your eyes and ears. Staying up to date on how your team is doing is even harder when you’re not together. Dashboards help you make smarter decisions, faster. You can gain easy insights into the activity of every aspect of your work, whether your team is sitting next to you or across the world.
Connect your team with integrations. monday.com houses all of your most important data, workflows, and communications. But teams can also use a variety of different tools on the platform; workflows from other apps (there are over 50 integrations available) are easily funneled into your account, making monday.com your easy-to-access point of reference.
To see how monday.com can refresh your work, get started here (there’s a 14-day free trial). 🎉
Calling all couples: Facebook has a new app for you. 👋
Facebook just (quietly) released a new app called Tuned — it’s a multimedia messaging app designed to help couples talk to each other. The move comes seven months after Facebook Dating (remember that?) launched, but instead of a matching app, Tuned is more of social network for *experimental* exchanges. 👀
From the app, people can share their mood, exchange music (via Spotify), share voice memos and create a digital scrapbook, among other things. Facebook is calling its messaging features a “private space” for couples to connect.
The app reportedly doesn’t require a Facebook account, but users’ data can still be used for ad targeting by the company. Tuned also comes out of Facebook’s ‘New Product Experimentation’ team, a group building consumer-facing apps to test out new ideas. Previously, this team built Aux, Bump, Hobbi and Whale, which we’ve written about before.
The app comes at an interesting moment, and is probably best served for couples who don’t live together right now.
Would you use this? Tell us here. 💕
Quibi, the highly anticipated short-form video platform backed by dozens of Hollywood A-listers and executives, finally launched.
“Much has been made anticipating this launch and its timing... will this be the Tiktok of professional video content, or something more like Tidal — an also-ran competitor with a substantial war chest but no chance of breaking out into the mainstream?” - Chris
Quibi, which is short for “quick bites,” has also been compared to “bite-sized“ Apple TV+ or Netflix, meaning it serves up content to short attention spans. It’s also been called a curated YouTube that you have to pay for. Media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg (who reinvigorated Disney in the late 80s, and then founded and sold DreamWorks Animation for $3.8 billion) is behind Quibi, along with co-founder Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay. Beyond it’s high-profile founders, Quibi has generated so much hype pre-launch in part due to the money behind it. The service raised nearly $2 billion before it launched. 💸
Quibi’s short-form programming includes shows where every episode is 10 minutes long, and many are shorter than that. You, the viewer, pay $5 per month to access these shows (with ads), and $8 per month to access an ad-free experience. For context, Hulu’s basic plan costs $5.99 per month, Apple TV+ costs $4.99 per month, and Netflix’s basic plan costs $8.99 per month.
Quibi’s lineup of homegrown shows feature a ton of well-known stars, including Joe Jonas, Idris Elba, Sophie Turner, Chrissy Teigen, Chance the Rapper, LeBron James, Jennifer Lopez, Reese Witherspoon, Liam Hemsworth, Christoph Waltz, Lena Waithe, Nicole Richie, Demi Lovato, Will Smith, Laura Dern, Kevin Hart, Tyra Banks, Zac Efron, Bill Murray and Laurence Fishburne. But so far, Quibi’s original programming has left a mediocre impression on critics, at best.
The reviews from the PH community were mixed. Some folks were disappointed that Quibi doesn’t support AirPlay, meaning you can’t cast any of Quibi’s content to your TV. Others wish there was more interesting content on the platform. And others were simply excited to see where Quibi goes. 📱
“Given the popularity of short clips and people running out of things to do at home these days, Quibi will be a home run.” - Omid
“Now couldn't be a better time for Quibi to launch while everyone's indoors.” - Ryan
“Quibi was built for people with short attention spans that primarily use mobile devices. Americans now spend more time on their smartphones than watching TV. This (along with Snapchat Originals) is embracing that trend and introducing a new form of ‘bite sized" entertainment.’" - Jared
Tell us what you think of Quibi here. 👈
Facebook Messenger recently launched a new desktop app so you can video chat on a bigger screen. TBH, it sounds a lot like Zoom.
The launch makes a lot of sense; in an announcement on their website, Facebook said that the company has seen more than a 100 percent increase in people using their desktop browser for audio and video calling through Messenger.
The news comes as, of course, as people have flocked to Zoom in droves, which has been met with a number of security and privacy issues. Group video calls via Facebook Messenger will be free and unlimited, and will come with all the same features as the mobile app. 👀
Some early reviews from the PH community:
“Many people are now doing virtual events and having a link is essential for people to just join. If they have that, I think people would easily move from Zoom or others.“ - Alexander
“Although I am completely distrusting of Facebook's privacy practices among other things, I am totally going to use this lol. The app so far seems really good.” - Brendan
ICYMI: We wrote about a new Zoom/Messenger/Hangouts alternative called Around a few weeks ago. Unlike its big tech competitors, Around prioritizes AI-based framing that finds your face as you move, as well as an auto-mute feature that eliminates background noise really well.
Have you started to notice more internet avatars wearing masks? There’s a reason for that.
Experts have increasingly acknowledged that the public use of masks could help prevent the spread of COVID-19, and the CDC is reportedly considering recommending wearing face coverings in public. The White House is also expected to urge Americans to wear face coverings when they leave their homes.
Accordingly, the movement #Masks4All has taken off online as more and more people make and wear homemade masks to wear in public. Jeremy Howard is behind the #Masks4all site, and the movement was started by Petr Ludwig in the Czech Republic. 😷
Of course, it’s important to remember that staying at home and social distancing should remain as a first line of defense against the spread of coronavirus, but masks may be helpful for when you need to leave the house for essential items like groceries.
How you can participate in the movement:
- Visit the #Masks4All site to learn more and to learn about how to make a mask at home
- Share your mask photo and/or join the conversation on social media using #masks4all
- Automatically photoshop a mask onto your social media profiles.
This Twitter Mask tool is especially helpful for that last step.
“Yes, there is a shortage of manufactured masks, and these should go to hospital workers. But anyone can make a mask at home by cutting up a cotton T-shirt, tying it back together and then washing it at the end of the day. Another approach, recommended by the Hong Kong Consumer Council, involves rigging a simple mask with a paper towel and rubber bands that can be thrown in the trash at the end of each day.” - Twitter Mask Maker Lisha Li
And if you have spare N95 masks, please send them to healthcare workers on the frontlines who need them. Mask Match is a great resource for donating.
We’ve found solace in hearing from Makers lately. Despite the pandemic, teams are still building and launching new products, often aimed at providing resources to people on the frontlines and mental support to those quarantined at home. We rounded up our favorite advice from founders lately to give you some inspiration today. 👇
How to build a product in a pandemic
Last week, Girls’ Night In launched Stay Home, Take Care, a resource-packed site that doesn’t prescribe one way of processing the global pandemic, but instead offers multiple ways of coping (comfort, entertainment, action, distraction, etc.) based on what you, personally, need.
The Girls’ Night In team built the site in seven days in response to COVID-19, and we talked to founder Alisha Ramos on what she learned building a full-fledge product in such a short period of time. Alisha says the rule book was “thrown out completely” and that her team needed to wear hats they weren’t used to in order to get the site live so quickly. 👀
“I personally learned that jumping on a quick Slack call to talk something out in 5-10 minutes is so much better than going back and forth typing on Slack. So much context can get lost. On a fast-moving project like this, it's important to not be so precious about wondering whether it's ok to call someone up.”
How to keep your mental health in check
Product Hunt recently spoke with Roni Frank, the co-founder of the online therapy app Talkspace, about how she “walks the walk” when it comes to mental health. Mental health is extremely important right now, and Talkspace has promised free online therapy to healthcare workers on the frontlines of the crisis. The app also started offering a special 16-day program (for subscribers) aimed at addressing coronavirus-related stress and there’s now a free therapist-led Facebook support group where non-users can seek guidance directly from licensed therapists. 🙌
“If I want to ultimately reduce stigma around therapy, I have to walk the walk and talk about my own struggles. But I’m not afraid of talking about it and I’m not afraid that people will think I’m a weak person because I suffer from anxiety, et cetera. It’s very important for me to talk about it and I think it inspires employees to talk about their own struggles too.”
How to foster creativity at home
Lightricks first built an app that allowed anyone to edit selfies (Facetune). When that took off, the team put all their resources into building more creativity-first apps. We spoke with co-founder and CEO Zeev Farbman about his advice on building a brand that promotes creativity. 🎉
“Recognizing we had an opportunity to provide creative enthusiasts with tools that translate their energy into beautiful and entertaining works of art, without users having to break the bank, is a great feeling. And being able to see the eclectic content users create has probably been the most rewarding aspect of the business.”
