Briefing: Spotify Confidence, Pinterest predictions, Airplane acqui-hired
Plus: Databases explained, Amazon's ad-funded Prime, farewell to an old friend
Hi product people đ,Â
Welcome back! And welcome to the 300+ new folks who joined us this past 2 weeks. This weekâs briefing is coming to you on a Friday because of the bank holiday but weâll be back on Thursdays from next week.
Spotify is known for its ability to conduct multiple product experiments on a massive scale and now it is offering its own internal experimentation tools to external customers. Confidence is a new, productized package of Spotifyâs internal experimentation infrastructure that will offer companies a full suite of experimentation tools including: feature flagging, a rich set of APIs, reporting metrics and custom workflows. In a blog post outlining the vision for the new product, Spotify GM Johan Rydberg says Confidence is designed to replace the build-vs-buy dichotomy with an API-driven pick ân mix approach to experimentation instead.Â
Confidence is currently in private beta and the move follows companies like Revolut who also announced the productization of internal tools last year. As companies continue to push for profitability, the trend of transforming internal tools into monetizable external products looks set to continue in 2024.
Speaking of internal tools, internal tooling startup Airplane announced on Wednesday that it is being acquired by Airtable. Airplane raised $32 million in funding just last year but the acquisition means the company will be sunsetting its product on March 1st. This piece of analysis takes a deeper look at the possible causes of the acquisition, with high switching costs thought to be one reason the company struggled to grow as quickly as it needed to.Â
This week also saw the product world bid farewell to an old favorite with prototyping tool Invision confirming that they are to shut shop. The companyâs Freehand tool was recently acquired by Miro following a pivot to workplace collaboration and Miroâs Chief Product Officer says they will continue to build upon some of the features introduced by Invisionâs Freehand. It is a sad end for the company who, despite raising over $300 million in investment, inevitably couldnât compete with the likes of Figma for prototyping.
Finally, if youâre looking to kick off the new year with a new note taking and productivity app that puts everything you need in one place, this beautifully designed product might be just what you need.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Essential reads for product teams
New from the Department of Product this week
Deep: The worldâs top genAI companies and how to use them to boost your productivity
Practical ways to use generative AI products in your everyday role, including crafting presentations, building prototypes and managing stakeholders.đ§ Knowledge Series: Databases explained
What does a database do? How databases fit into the product tech stack, practical ways product teams use databases and the important differences between databases worth knowing about. Plus a complete list of all major databases, categorised by use cases and technology.
(Department of Product)
UX - How to improve validation errors with adaptive messaging
Across multiple rounds of Baymardâs large-scale checkout testing, they repeatedly observed that the content of the error message itself is vital to the user's ability to quickly recover from the error and get back on track. 98% of products are using generic error messaging when dynamic messaging could boost conversion (Baynard)
Strategy - The hard questions you need to ask when planning your strategy
Many managers view strategy as a complex subject, but at its essence it boils down to three questions: Where are we now? Where do we want to go? What is a credible path to get there?Â
Case study - How Meta does AI product debugging
Meta created the Prediction Robustness program to innovate on tools and services to ensure the quality of Meta products relying on ML model predictions. Learn how Meta does AI debugging at scale to get inspiration for your own product. (Meta Engineering)
Interview - Qualcomm CEO on why Generative AI might create a new upgrade cycle for smartphones
It has the potential to create a new upgrade cycle on smartphones. And what we want is that eventually youâre going to say, you know, âIâve been keeping my phone for the past four yearsâ.â.â.âNow I need to buy a new phone because I really want this gen AI capability.â (FT)
Tools you can use
Reponotes - get Slack updates on any codebase as it changes
Moodboard - kick off design sessions with an instant AI mood board generator
RecordOnce - create internal updates or product demo videos without having to edit out mistakes
New product features, launches and announcements this week
Telegram is rolling out a new update that is designed to use less of your phoneâs battery. The new UI requires fewer resources than before which Telegram says uses less battery and works better on older devices. The move could spark a new trend where product teams design interfaces that are optimised not only for usability but battery life, too. And that would be a welcome development, if so.
Stable Diffusionâs video API is available for product teams now. The new API gives teams access to powerful generative AI capabilities which can be prompted using jpegs and pngs. Check out the API docs and watch a demo of it in action here.
Twilio has unveiled a new product called engagement suite which gives product teams access to a package of features designed to help them measure the performance of SMS and MMS, as you might do for email campaigns.Â
Microsoft has launched its Copilot app on iOS. The app currently has a 4 star rating and is the latest release in the rollout of its Copilot brand which spans across most of its products including Windows and Github. The company also unveiled a physical Copilot button across PC keyboards this week. Microsoft clearly thinks brand simplicity is key to adoption and by doubling down on the Copilot brand so aggressively, it is doing everything in its power to get ahead of its rivals.Â
Google is planning a new AI assistant of its own, this time under yet another name. Pixie would be exclusive to Pixel devices but the introduction of another brand name is in stark contrast to Microsoftâs unified approach.
đ Product data and trends to stay informed
2023 was the year tech companies cared about profit. Hereâs how many times the words âprofitsâ, âmarginsâ, and âfree cash flowâ were mentioned during earnings calls. The trend looks set to continue into this year, too.
A new trend is set to take hold in 2024: corporate mental health bots. Amazon has given employees access to Twill, an app that acts as a human coach, payroll provider PayrollPlans says around 9,400 employers will use a mental health bot called Woebot in 2024.
Reddit reportedly finished the year with $800m in ad revenue. The company previously in 2021 said it aimed to exceed $1bn in ad revenue by 2023.
61% of all adults with a social media account said theyâve become more selective about what they post on social networks, and 28% report posting less on their preferred platform compared with last year. More users are opting for private networks and groups instead. Full report on social media habits.
Pinterest has shared its predictions for 2024 based on user engagement. Fusion foods, ceramic piggy banks, retro themed weddings and jellyfish themed products are all set to take over 2024. Full Pinterest trends forecast.
Amazon is set to start charging users who want an ad-free experience on Prime Video. Its ads business is already massive, with $12 billion in revenues in Q3 2023, $2 billion more than its subscriptions revenues but $11 billion less than AWS.
VC investment in US startups fell 30% in 2023, with funding dropping to levels not seen since 2019. The number of active investment firms dropped a massive 38%, too.
đ Upcoming live programs
If youâre looking to level up your technical skills this year, the live Web Technologies program kicks off February 3rd.
Set over 4 weeks, youâll get the chance to work with an instructor and other participants from all over the world to get a deeper understanding of the technical aspects of product development.
The Web Technologies program is designed to help you become more technically confident - not transition into engineering. Early bird pricing gets you $150 off.
Other product news in brief
Jony Ive has reportedly poached a lead iPhone designer to work on a secret OpenAI hardware device.
Credit Karmaâs co-founder is leaving the company.
Peloton is partnering with TikTok which will see it host custom made fitness content.
The DOP Weekly Briefing is a product-led perspective of whatâs happening in tech - and why it matters to product teams. If you want more than the Weekly Briefing, paid subscribers also get access to in-depth DOP Deep dives, The Knowledge Series and Chartpacks.
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