The Leaderboard

“This is basically a free car rental... at least with the current pricing.” - Chris

Lyft just announced that the company is getting into car rentals, improving upon the headache that often comes with renting a car. 🚘

How it works: You can rent a car on a whim from your main Lyft app, and the company will even provide a $20 ride credit to make sure you don’t pay extra getting to and from the car pickup point. There are no mileage limits and you don’t need to fill the car back up with gas when you’re done using it — Lyft will do that for you and only charge the local market price. Folks have to be 22 in order to rent a Lyft car, and the company doesn’t seem to be charging the “young person fee” that traditional car rental companies have historically tacked on for drivers under 25.

The idea is a transportation app to rule them all (and eliminate personal car ownership); Lyft expanded its ride options last year to include bikes, scooters and public transit routes.

The company is starting the service in San Francisco in Los Angeles, where their cars are currently available for rent for as a little as $35 per day. 👀

Beyond traditional car rental companies, Lyft rentals is competing with car rental apps like Getaround (which Uber partnered with and then un-partnered with) and Turo. It a smart move by Lyft, considering car rental companies have been losing money to the ridesharing industry to the point where they’re even investing in their own ridesharing tech.

The click-click-click noise is back. What click-click-click noise as we talking about? The one from your iPod’s click wheel, obviously.

There’s a new app called Rewound that recreates the iPod experience on your iPhone’s touchscreen. Rewound basically operates like any music player app (it’s only available in the App Store right now) and lets you sync your music from an Apple Music library. The app also lets you use downloadable skins to seem more like an iPod and it uses haptic feedback like the classic iPod.

Note: Right now, it only works with Apple Music. Sorry, Spotify users. 😭

“I had no idea how much I needed this to exist until now.” - Alexander

“I bought it to support the developer and also because I rely heavily on playlists. I love the use of haptic feedback and the app is great so far.” - Michael

The app triggered a lot of nostalgia among the Product Hunt team, and even sparked a heated debate.



Settle this for us. What’s the best Apple product ever designed? Answers go here. 👈

The fashion industry is outdated. As it stands, there’s a lack of software-based solutions to help new entrants start their own clothing lines — there’s no automated infrastructure and manufacturers don’t tend to accept new clients.

Cala launched yesterday to shake things up. The “fashion house technology” aims to help the next generations of creatives launch their own fashion brands, similar to how, in the founder’s words, an Uber experience lets anyone have a private driver. 👗

“Our target audience is anybody who wants to produce apparel products. At the small scale, we're leveling the playing field for new and emerging brands by granting access to a distributed network of manufacturers. At the large scale, we help established brands scale beyond their initial launch stages into retail and other untapped markets.” - Cala Head of Product Ryan Wood.

How it actually works: Designers (anyone) submit sketches for their imagined clothing collections and wait for manufacturers to submit a bid to make it (this matching system also resembles Uber). Once matched, the designer and manufacturer can exchange samples, manage garment supply chain, source materials, organize fulfillment and complete up to 40 other tasks related to production. Cala already has already partnered with manufacturers around the world, which have the capacity to product ~500,000 items per month.

What Cala really wants to do is identify the next Kylie Jenner(s) of the world. Jenner built Kylie Cosmetics with about six employees and ended up selling a majority stake in the company for $600 million. She had the industry connections to quickly outsource manufacturing, which is not something most people are born into.

“Since not everyone has Kylie's network, Cala was created to help, which is why I love them.“ - Adam

Using Cala, anyone with a creative vision (and a bit of merchandising savvy) can get an apparel line into production. As the internet has made trends rise and fall faster than ever before, Cala’s long-term vision is to streamline and automate the entire fashion industry with a particular focus on product. 👕

A public waitlist to use Cala opens today. Would you try this?

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a number of innovation fashion-focused products launch. These include things like on-demand tailoring, a site that lets you code your own t-shirt, a voting platform to eliminate clothing waste, a marketplace for custom sneakers and a clothing line made from unusable clothes.

We love end of the year lists (see yesterday’s newsletter). So obviously we were excited (giddy) to dig into Apple’s Top Charts of 2019, aka a series of lists on the App Store that highlight the most downloaded apps this year. 👀

Many familiar apps topped the “free” chart, including YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Messenger, Gmail, Netflix, Facebook and Google Maps, Amazon, DoorDash, WhatsApp, FaceApp, Uber, YOLO, Hulu, Venmo, Bitmoji and Google Chrome.

Among the top paid apps sat Facetune, AutoSleep Track Sleep, Touch Retouch, Procreate Pocket, Sky Guide, Scanner Pro, kirakira+, Forest, Camera+ 2, WaterMinder and Things 3, among others.

Apple also highlighted the app trend of the year, which was storytelling. These apps — things like Anchor, Wattpad, Unfold (which Squarespace recently bought), Steller, Canva and Spark Camera — inspired people record their “memories, dreams, images and voices” more than ever before. 🗣

And of course we’d be remiss if we didn’t shout out the app of the year, which one Product Hunt member described as an “instant buy.” 🙌

ICYMI: Spotify launched its annual Wrapped stats last week. 👀

Wrapped lets you relive and discover the artists, music and podcasts you’ve loved most over the past year. Since we’re approaching 2020, Spotify also included information about your listening habits from the past decade (between 2009 and 2019) in beautiful, infographic form. The product is optimized for self-reflection and humble bragging — Wrapped provides intimate, data-backed details of how we all pass the time (with music).

“Supported by email and in-app prompts, the experience is optimized for sharing, creating virality organically through social sharing and augmented by ad money and sponsored hashtags,” writes Sarah McBride, Maker of AI t-shirts and Partner at Shrug Capital. 

In this article, Sarah breaks down the organic marketing lessons we learn from Spotify Wrapped. Here’s what you’ll learn from the piece:

• Why giving users tools to express their identity works 
• How to make the sharing experience as frictionless as possible 
• How to harness organic distribution channels 
• Why an experience “people can’t resist sharing” works best 

Plus, here are a few actionable steps to help you build your own organic marketing engine. 🚀

For the data nerds who want more of this, you can dive even deeper into your music listening metrics with this.

Here’s a thought: Would you sell your own data if you could make $$$? 🤔

Delphia, a new Toronto-based (and Y Cominator-backed) fintech startup that lets people invest in the stock market using only their data, thinks you would.

How it works: Delphia was founded on the idea of collective action. Users connect their personal information — location data, social media accounts, shopping data — to Delphia and answer daily questions about their behavior for the company to analyze. All data is consensually shared and Delphia then makes strategic picks in the stock market on behalf of its users. The company will collect fees and then redistribute half of those back to users sharing their data in exchange for investments, but users don’t have to actually contribute any money to participate.

But in order for the idea to work, there needs to be a critical mass of users sharing their data, and Delphia is aiming for 100,000 folks before “officially” launching their app. 👀

So how much money could you theoretically make through Delphia? The answer depends on a combination of the uniqueness of the data you contribute as well as the quantity.

While current financial systems rewards having valuable information that others do not and those who have more capital, Delphia believes they’re exploiting a “glitch” in the system.

“The entire system is built on predicting the future. On betting whether a company will rise or fall, or whether we will or won’t buy. It’s built on betting where the money will flow nextWhich is interesting when you consider that GDP – the measure of a country’s economic growth – is mostly (68%) made up of consumer spending. Said another way, the things that you and I do with our money, are the questions of greatest importance to those in power.- Delphia CEO Andrew Peek 

 A brief history of Craigslist:

• Launches first email distribution list in 1995 
• Launches mobile app in 2019 

That’s right — as of yesterday, Craigslist is finally (finally!) a mobile experience.

“Wow. I never though I'd see the day.” - Evan

Staying true to its no-frills form, the Craigslist app is superrrr minimalist but as useful as Craigslist itself. Even the color scheme is the same as the web version.

“I like how they maintained the Craigslist ‘look.’ The app UI seems familiar even though it's brand new for the company." - Gabriel

While there are a number of third-party apps for Craigslist out there already, they’re bloated with ads and trackers. Pro tip: It’s not that easy to find the new app in the App Store yet because of all of these alternatives with better SEO. The App Store link on this page will point you in the right direction. 👈

What’s new: with the new Craigslist app, users can set up alerts, save posts and searches, place and edit ads, favorite things and browse for items. It basically replicates the simple experience that is...using Craigslist.

Earlier this year, it was speculated that Craigslist’s annual revenue could be over $1 billion, which is saying a lot since the product hasn’t really changed over the years. 🙌

“As a yogi, I'm excited by Zenia for the real-time feedback it gives on your yoga posturing. This will be essential for an improved practice and preventing injuries.“ - Tristan

Yoga got an AI upgrade yesterday; the first AI-powered yoga assistant launched on Product Hunt. The assistant, called Zenia, works by using motion tracking and data from thousands of yoga lessons to analyze your movements, monitoring your positions and giving you feedback. 💯

As any yogi knows, real-time position adjustments are key to improving your practice, and Zenia effectively mimics the experience of having a personal yoga instructor.

How it really works:

“Zenia’s core technology is based on algorithms of computer vision and neural networks. Through the front camera, the app recognizes movements of 16 major joints and within seconds gives feedback.” - Zenia founder Aleksei Kurov.

Before you jump to “using the front camera is kinda creepy,” rest assured that Zenia’s tech doesn’t store images or record any video format. It also doesn’t save anything to a server.

To start, the app is launching with four guided courses and 14 yoga sequences of different intensity and length. 🙏

Some initial reactions from yogis in the PH community:

“Pose tracking technology finally allows to do yoga right.” - Alexander

“Real time feedback is very important for a yoga novice like me.” - Ivan

“This app is a great solution for those who don't always have time for a full 1-1.5 hour practice.” - Anya

Over the past year, we’ve seen over two dozen meditation apps launch on Product Hunt, along with a myriad of yoga-centric products. There’s minimalist yoga apps, yoga headphones, a database of yoga retreats in India, yoga sessions for runners, and two-way video interactive yoga.

Deutsche Telekom (aka T-Mobile’s parent company) likes the color magenta. In fact, the company’s lawyers have sent Lemonade, the AI insurance startup, a letter ordering them to stop using the color magenta (which Lemonade uses in their brand and product). 😬

For context, Deutsche Telekom has a trademark on “magenta” and has gone after others (like AT&T, Engadget and aspiring watchmakers on Indiegogo) over the pink shade before (TechCrunch called them “trademark trolls“).

“Sounds like something a Disney villain would do, so you can imagine how c-r-a-z-y it was to discover this is real life.” - Lemonade Software Engineer Itamar Kestenbaum

In retaliation, Itamar decided to make sure the web at large stays Deutsche Telekom compliant. Yesterday, Pink-Out launched to “un-pink” the web against the company.

The Product Hunt community took to the comments to echo the sentiment #Freethepink.

“No one have the rights to own a certain color. Not even T-Mobile.” - Yuval

“Love it when people actually take their time to play the game!” - Dominik

“While I don't object to McDonalds owning the trademark to a big yellow M, I really don't want them to be able to block other restaurants from using yellow or red at all. I'm not sure how a company can have the rights to do it. This extension is such a cool way to deliver them this message.” - Christine

Today’s Digest was crafted by Product Hunt and sponsored by our friends at HP. 

For those of you who didn’t manage to beat the lines or couldn’t face a 4 a.m. start to bag a Black Friday bargain, we have some goodies for you this Cyber Monday. The best part is that you can shop in your undies and no one will know.

Kit out your home office, treat your bestie to a new gaming rig, or finally snag a fancy new touchscreen desk display. HP’s offering up to $1,000 off on items like:

💻The HP Pavilion Laptop 15t Touch

🖨The worlds first smart home printer

💻HP EliteBook x360 830 G6 - save up to

🖥HP ProDesk 400 G5 Mini

💻HP ENVY Laptop 15t touch

🖱HP X3000 Wireless Mouse

💻OMEN Laptop - 17T

🕹OMEN Desktop PC 880 -160se

⌨️OMEN by HP Accessory bundle

Check out the entire Cyber Monday collection. Deals end soon!