Briefing: Google Docs’ new rival, Tinder’s ID boost, goodbye Apple web apps
Plus: Gemini and Sora in the spotlight, UberEats robots unleashed, a new calendar tool for 1 year
Hi product people 👋,
Google Docs is still the go-to for many folks in tech but there’s always room for new entrants. This week, we came across a new document creation tool called ButterDocs which promises a better way to write documents. How? Well, one of its main differentiators is its ability to combine notes, research and thoughts with the document you’re writing. A ButterDoc can include embedded access to whiteboard drawings, written research notes and Kanban-style organization boards to structure your thinking. It’s certainly a unique take on document creation and you can check it out here.
Speaking of Google, the company has been firmly in the limelight this week as its new Gemini model took center stage. Unveiled at the end of last week, Gemini 1.5 Pro promises to blow away the competition with the ability to process up to a million tokens. The company is also understood to be experimenting with integrating its latest Gemini AI model directly into Chrome. We dig deep into Gemini in our latest DoP deep dive.
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a new tool to power your product’s notifications, this new startup might be worth exploring. Knock says it wants to make notification management easier for product teams and differentiates itself with its ability to construct notifications that pull in data and snippets from third party tools. For non-technical team members, the workflows can also be constructed through a web interface.
But while critics might suggest that notifications like those powered by Knock play a big part in our dopamine-induced attention span problem, a new study suggests that our ability to concentrate when we need to has actually improved over time.
Finally, if you’re working on something strategic at the moment and need to back it up with some market research, this collection of 40+ market research tools might help.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
New from the Department of Product Substack this week
Knowledge Series #24: How are mobile apps built?
If you’ve ever worked with execs who have zero experience building mobile apps you’ll know that there’s often a naive assumption that it’s no different to building a web app. In this Knowledge Series, we explore how mobile apps are built, the programming languages used and the choices a product team needs to make before building a mobile app.
DoP Deep: Google Gemini and AI opportunities for product teams
What are Google’s new models, how does Gemini compare to other models and what are the practical ways Gemini can be used by product teams?
(Department of Product)
Free guide - Build or Buy: Native SaaS Integrations?
Customers today require seamless native integrations in your SaaS product. But, each integration takes months of engineering to build and maintain. Instead, the fastest growing SaaS companies use embedded iPaaS solutions which allow them to add third party integrations in minutes. But what are the tradeoffs? This guide covers all the factors you should consider when making a build or buy decision.
(Paragon*)
Interview - YouTube’s VP of Product on how to propel product growth
YouTube is now the top streaming service in the US with almost 9% share of all streaming viewers. In this interview, YouTube’s VP of product management Nicky Rettke, explains how the product has grown so big so quickly. (Deadline)
UX - How to design product feature comparison tables
Comparison is one of the most critical activities users perform on the web. In many cases, it’s a necessary step before your site visitors will perform a desired action, like buying your product, signing up for membership, contacting you, or requesting a quote. This guide shows you how to do it. (NN Group)
Case study - How to use GitHub AI to fix security issues
In November 2023, GitHub announced the launch of code scanning autofix, leveraging AI to suggest fixes for security vulnerabilities in product teams’ codebases. In this post, GitHub’s engineers describe how it works and how it can potentially help your product development process. (GitHub blog)
Tools you can use
Delibr - a Copilot for product teams who write PRDs
Yearly - a new calendar that visualizes and tracks your entire year
Locofy - transform designs to code in 1 click, powered by large design models
*Sponsored
New product features, launches and announcements this week
Uber is testing a new feature that allows users to book a delivery for prepaid-items in local stores. Uber Eats is also rolling out its sidewalk robot food delivery service to Japan, thanks to a partnership with Mitsubishi.
Apple is removing the ability for European users to install web apps on their home screen. It says it’s too difficult to keep the feature and comply with the EU’s latest piece of big tech regulation, the Digital Markets Act. The legislation targets “gatekeepers” of certain technologies, such as operating systems and browsers and forces them to offer viable third party alternatives. In this case, since home screen web apps are often created using Safari, allowing them to exist without an alternative could mean Apple violates the rules.
Tinder is rolling out its new ID checks to the US, UK and other countries. The new feature is designed to boost the safety of users who will need to upload a drivers license or passport to get a blue checkmark. Tinder says profiles with verified identity saw a 67% increase in matches.
OpenAI has released Sora, a powerful (and reasonably mind blowing) new text to video platform. Capabilities include generating simulated worlds for video games, creative assets for marketing campaigns and connecting two separate videos. The major new release casts a large shadow over startups looking to compete in the space and you can read the technical report which underpins the model here.
Clubhouse is still around. This week they launched a new feature which allows you to send an AI-generated voice message and it looks pretty impressive.
📈 Product data and trends to stay informed
Google’s new Gemini 1.5 Pro model is able to process 1 million tokens (equal to 11 hours of audio or 1 hour of video). This is referred to as the ‘context window”. The context window is the amount of content an LLM can consider when analyzing an input. In internal tests, Google is reported to have pushed this limit to 10 million tokens.
The demand value of open-source software (OSS) is estimated to be $8.8 trillion and companies would need to spend 3.5 times more on software than they currently do if open source didn’t exist.
Adobe says there are over 3 trillion PDFs in the world. And it wants people to use its new AI feature to interact with them.
South Korea is the most digitally connected country in the world, with 99% of adults saying they use the internet or own a smartphone. India was last on the list, with 56% of adults saying they use the internet or own a smartphone. However, education levels are a huge influencing factor. Full Pew report on internet connectivity.
China’s multibillion-dollar livestreaming industry is driven by over 24,000 talent agencies. Some of these are suing streamers for up to $28,000 each if they stop streaming.
Other product news in brief
Twilio is reported to be considering spinning off or selling product analytics platform Segment.
Reddit has reportedly signed a deal worth $60 million that will use posts to train AI models.
Apple is reshuffling its audio products leadership team.
The DOP Weekly Briefing is a product-led perspective of what’s happening in tech - and why it matters to product teams. If you want more than the weekly briefing, paid subscribers also get access to The Knowledge Series, in-depth DOP Deep dives and Chartpacks to feed your product brain and stay ahead.
If you enjoyed this week’s Department of Product briefing, hit the like button below! ❤️