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Happy Holidays, Product Hunters! 🎄🎁🎅❄️⛄️

As always, we're so thankful for you and are pretty excited to see everything you'll launch in 2019 😉

Love,

The Product Hunt Team

P.S. Something to reallllly get you in the Christmas spirit: a free, streaming service with a huge library of classic Christmas films. Enjoy 😊

HQ Words — HQ Trivia's first expansion beyond trivia — emerged out of beta last night. 😲

HQ Words is sort of a mix between Words with Friends, traditional crossword puzzles and Wheel-of Fortune.

How it works: Similar to HQ Trivia, players will join the game live every night to compete. The object of the game is to solve word puzzles by correctly choose what letters are hidden. You spin a wheel before the game starts to get an automatic letter revealed. Then the Host will provide hints about the word as a 25-second timer for the puzzle counts down. You lose by choosing three letters wrong or failing to fill out the words.

HQ Words will go live every day at 6:30 p.m. PST, right after HQ Trivia's broadcast. 🔊

While HQ Trivia was a phenomenon this time last year, the amount of daily players has significantly declined over the past several months. This launch will also be the first under CEO and co-founder Rus Yusupov, after co-founder and former CEO Colin Kroll tragically died a few weeks ago.

The game is now available inside the existing HQ Trivia iOS and Android apps.

Since HQ Trivia became a hit in 2017, a bunch of apps have launched to become the next "HQ for X." Fall down the trivia rabbit hole here.

Earlier this week, Remove.bg launched and blew our minds.

“This is a huge time-saver for stock photos.” - Trish

“No more stupid work in photoshop 🕶” - Dariusz

“I was fully expecting this not to work, but it did it pretty much perfectly.” - Dan

Remove.bg is a simple tool that removes the background of any photo in 5 seconds.

According to the Maker Benjamin Grossing, Remove.bg was originally part of a bigger app, but they decided to release it as a standalone tool since removing photo backgrounds can get superrr tiresome. We're anxious to see what the “bigger app” might be....

Until then, some of the most recent photo editing tools out there to play around with this weekend:

📸 Lensa will improve your selfies with AI

📸 Affinitiy is a professional photo editing tool for your iPad

📸 Artini is a photo app for the ~artist~ in you

📸 Luminar is superrr easy to use and has AI editing features built in

📸 Lightroom — because it's a classic

CoinList wants to “bring decentralized markets to the masses.”

At least that’s the theme of its inaugural hackathon, which was announced yesterday in tandem with CoinList’s new online hackathon platform called “Build.”

A brief history

CoinList, which spun out of AngelList last year, has already helped 50 companies raise $450 million in token sales.

But beyond funding, teams need community to succeed. Build (initially) aims to help crypto companies spin up online hackathons in very little time — and ultimately grow communities by connecting teams with developers.

The details

CoinList’s first hackathon will take place next month with 0x, an open protocol that enables peer-to-peer exchange on Ethereum. To date, the team has built one of the most impressive products in crypto:

📈350K+ total transactions
💰$445M+ total volume
🚀Used by 30+ projects

The first hackathon will encourage participants to build projects in categories like:

✅ Compliance
🎮 Gaming and NFTs
💸 Decentralized Finance

The hackathon starts January 10 and will run for 3 weeks.

If you need some inspiration for your projects, check out this list 💡

The fine print

🤑The first prize is $10K and every participant that submits a project will get $100

🎤Winners will get featured on CoinList and Product Hunt

💻Participants will learn from top investors at firms like a16z crypto and Scalar, as well as designers from IDEO and 0x

If participants continue developing their projects after the hackathon has concluded, 0x is always looking to finance promising teams through their Ecosystem Acceleration Program.

Today’s Daily Digest was crafted by Product Hunt and sponsored by our friends at CoinList. 😊

“Smash that sparkle” — Taylor Lorenz

Twitter's reverse-chronological feed is back with a sparkle. Literally.

Yesterday, Twitter re-launched its original feed — and that means newest tweets are back at the top. Users can now quickly switch between a ranked timeline and reverse-chronological timeline by toggling the “sparkle button” at the top-right corner of their feed. ✨✨✨

Goodbye to the algorithm feed?

Twitter introduced “top tweets” — the algorithm-driven feed designed to surface popular tweets with lots of engagement — back in 2016. That was also around the time when Facebook was way ahead of Twitter, so it began reinventing itself. Like with Moments. And Polls. And Twitter Live. And Threads.

But people have always loved Twitter because of its ability to tell us what’s happening right now.

“Every morning I switch Twitter back to showing tweets in chronological order and every night Twitter switches it back. This is the boulder I must push uphill.” — Thomas

Thank you for listening to us, Twitter. We'd love an edit button now.

While we're waiting...

Here are 10 tools to play around with on Twitter:

Refined Twitter is the perfect blend of Tweetdeck and Twitter 🙏
Macaw will curate your Twitter for you 🐦
Twitter Bots lets you make your own Twitter bots without code 🤖
Life on Twitter gives you fun facts about your Twitter 😻
Boxy is a gorgeousss Mac app for Twitter 🖥
Unfollow makes it superrr easy tool to unfollow your non-followers 👋
Spoonbill tells you when people you follow change their Twitter bio 💬
Twizzy makes Twitter less distracting 👀
Tinyfollow turns your Tweets into a weekly digest 📝
FollowFriday surfaces interesting people you should follow on Twitter 👥

Framer's had a big year.

Last December, the Dutch design startup secured a $7.7 million Series A to level up against competitors like InVision, Adobe, Sketch and Figma.

In September, the company officially launched Framer X, a React-based interactive design that marries the design and development workflow (after some 50K designers signed up for the beta version 👀). Framer also hosted its first-ever design conference in Amsterdam to celebrate the launch. 🎉

Some initial reactions to Framer X:

“Totally, totally mindblown by Framer X. This is the design tool you have been waiting for.” - Jon Gold

“Framer X is without-a-doubt the future of what product design tools will be. It's really the little things that make this apparent.” - Tanner Christensen

In November, the company raised an additional $24 million and launched a beta of its Team Store, a way for teams of any size to build and scale design systems.

What ultimately sets Framer X apart from competing tools is that it's built with both designers and engineers in mind. The Team Store is where it all comes together. Engineers can write and add React components to their team's private space and designers can prototype with those components or design their own.

In the long-term, Framer wants to power the next generation of design systems, giving every company the ability to innovate at the level of design-forward companies like Slack, Dropbox and Facebook.

Today’s Daily Digest was crafted by Product Hunt and sponsored by our friends at Framer. Psst! They've grown their team by 50 percent this year and are still hiring across all teams. 😊

You: “Not another gift guide Product Hunt!”

Us: “Let us have this.”

Just kidding. We won't torture you by adding to the endless lists circulating the Internet right now feeding you tech to get your Grandma who doesn’t care about tech.

Think of this particular list as more of a recap of the weirdest, smartest and game-changing products we saw launch this year. And then maybe buy something for your Grandma.

The best gift to turn your home into Smart House

The Harry Potter Magic Printer adds movement to photos ✨

Memes on Canvas makes prints of popular memes, because we all need Elon Musk smoking a joint in our living room 🎨

Naked is the world's first home body scanner. 👤

Coinmine is an in-home crypto mining machine. 💸

Smartians are cloud-connected motors that make anythinggg in your home automatic. 👏

WyzeCam is a tiny smart home camera (that only costs $19.99). 📹

Facebook Portal is a (slightly controversial) video calling gadget. 👀

The best gifts for cat (or dog!) parents

Varram Pet Robot is a cute 'lil robot that will keep your pet entertained while you're out. 😻

Mew and Me is a game that tracks what your pet is doing in the house when you're not there. 👀

Petcube Bites flings treats at your pets. 🐶

Footloose is a kitty potty that tracks your furry friend's health. It's wild. 🚽

Cat in the Box is literally a cardboard box because...cats like boxes. 😹

Best subscription gift to change someone's life

Hers lets you order women's healthcare products to your doorstep monthly. 💁

Hims will mail dudes a number of unmentionables (think products for hair loss, erectile dysfunction, etc.)

FUTT will reliably send you a fresh pair of socks every month. 🧦

Feather is a furniture subscription designed for people who change their life a lot. 🛋

Ugly Drinks is a flavored sparkling water subscription. Goodbye LaCroix? 💦

Best ridiculous gifts

Sticker Mule turns photos of people into stickers/magnets/buttons/wall graphics 😁

Bacon Lover's Feast is like Birchbox, but for bacon. 🥓

AirPod Floss Stickers transform your AirPod case into a box of floss. 👂

Hangover Box comes with noodle soup, coffee, sunglasses, sleeping mask and a barf bag to get you through the morning after 🤯

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you had a baby with Elon Musk? Of course you have. Thankfully — with the power of AI — you can find out what your baby would look like.

Yesterday this tool launched, giving anyone with a web browser and internet access the power to swap faces with Elon (or anyone, including your friends).

Reflect isn’t the only one using AI to transform photos.

😯 Morphin (early access beta) puts you inside your favorite GIFs

😯 Face Swap Live lets you switch faces with your friends in real-time (like in Face/Off!)

😯 Emojiface turns your face into an emoji

😯 Zepeto turns your selfie into a Pixar character, currently at the top of the App Store

😯 Headface will turn you into Obama or Trump

😯 Lensa, #1 on Product Hunt today, will make you even more beautiful (made by the team that built Prisma)

Give Reflect a try and share your Elon baby photos with us on Twitter. We’ll RT our favorites, because it’s Friday. 😊

Five years ago, Tristan Walker launched Bevel out of frustrations with existing razor options for men of color on the market. The ultimate goal was to build a Proctor & Gamble for people of color. Yesterday, Proctor & Gamble bought it.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but journos are speculating that P&G paid somewhere between $20-$40 million, a sign that the 180+ year old consumer goods company plans to invest more into other (non white) segments of the market. And they’re not the only ones.

Inclusivity-first direct-to-consumer brands that — by definition — want to appeal to different cultural needs are making waves.

King Children ($2M raised) combines 3D printing with AR to create custom eyewear that fits every face shape and size. We wrote about how they could be the next Warby Parker. Or Casper. Or Glossier. 👓

Tinted is a beauty platform and retailer focused on brown women. It already has over 50K followers on Instagram. 💄

Lively ($15.3M raised) and ThirdLove ($13.6M raised) are are building bras for every size of woman.👙

Mayvenn is a startup that reinvented the distribution channel for hair extensions. 💁

Billie ($6M raised) is a female-first shaving company. 🛀

Eloquii (acquired by Walmart) is a clothing brand for women sizes 14-24. 🙌

We're calling BS on the right/brain left brain thing. If you work on the web in any capacity, you should be able to understand (and master!) good design. 🙌

Yesterday, Refactoring UI: The Book — a resource for product people who want to up their design skills —launched on Product Hunt. The reviews (and over 1K upvotes) flurried in:

“Read this book in one go. It only took 1.5 hours, which is something other books should aspire to achieve. I don't know that I've ever consumed that much knowledge about a topic in such a short time. It's really packed full of actionable tips.” - Peter

“I usually dread the design aspect of building something, but with every section I find myself actually excited imagining how to implement these ideas on current projects.” - John

Makers Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger have been exploring ways developers can get better at designing their own projects for a while, and the new book packages all their knowledge into one biiiiig resource. 📖

They primarily focus on how actual tactics —like using fewer borders in your designs — can be learned and used by literally anyone.

The “book” itself is actually a PDF and costs $79, or $149 for the book, screencasts, a component gallery, an icon library and a few other goodies.

If you've decided to pivot to design after this, here's some #inspo to get you started (besides Dribbble) 😉

UI Movement is a site for daily UI design inspiration 💡
Panda is a chrome plugin that aggregates design news 🐼
UI Recipes are weekly 15 minute design lessons from the hottest apps 🔥
Sidebar gives you the 5 best design links of the day 🔗
Hustl will turn your design process into a time-lapse video 📹
Screely is the easiest way to turn screenshots into beautiful images 📸
Trailer makes it easy to create a marketing video for your next project 💯
PixelSnap is measuring tape for your computer 📏
LightBox is the spiritual successor to Flash 👀

Or fall down a design tool rabbit hole here.