Briefing: Super Google Sheets, Netflix’s app snub, Finding Nimo
Plus: The app economy, Uber's flexible pricing, AI for performance management
Hi product people 👋,
Welcome to the 355+ new readers who joined us this past week!
Notion has finally revealed what it plans to do with its acquisition of indie calendar Cron. This week, the company unveiled a new standalone Calendar app which operates independently but is closely integrated into the Notion ecosystem. For product teams, one of the more practical examples of this is the ability to take information from databases inside Notion (like product roadmaps or release notes) and link them directly to the Notion standalone Calendar app which can be shared with stakeholders or external customers. Notion recently appointed the inventor of Google Sheets as its new CTO and with the launch of Calendar it clearly has Google Workspace in its sights.
Speaking of Google Sheets, if you’re looking for ways to enhance the work you get done in Sheets, this week we came across this handy plugin. Numerous is designed to bake generative AI directly into your Google Sheets which means you can do things like ask it to create formulas for you, write SEO meta tags or translate text from your product’s pages for internationalization.
Meanwhile, it’s been a tricky start to the new year for Apple. If you and your team were planning to develop a dedicated app for visionOS you may want to think twice. It has been reported by Bloomberg this week that Netflix has no plans to build a dedicated app for the device at launch. This is a blow to Apple since it’s been marketing this device as both a productivity and entertainment product. Users will still be able to watch Netflix in Safari but the lack of commitment shown from Netflix at launch is likely to worry Apple execs. Early impressions ahead of its launch have also been mixed with some reviewers commenting about how heavy the device is. Competitors have realised this and one indie, lighter AR alternative that went down a storm at CES is the Nimo.
Apple is also having a difficult time navigating the complexities of a ruling impacting its App store. This week, the US Supreme Court denied both Apple and Fortnite maker Epic Games’ request to appeal a lower court’s ruling on the alleged anti-competitive nature of Apple’s App store. Apple largely won its original case with one big exception: the courts ruled that app makers should be able to steer their customers to the web from links inside their apps.
Apple subsequently released its plans for complying with the ruling and we dig deeper into this and the mobile app ecosystem in general in our latest Chartpack.
Finally, if you’re hiring at the moment but struggle to manage the process, this new product might help.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Essential reads for product teams
New from the Department of Product Substack this week
📈Chartpack - The mobile app economy Q1 2024
In this Chartpack we explore some of the most useful economic trends and metrics worth knowing about the mobile app economy in 2024 so that if you and your team are considering building your own mobile app - or you’re crafting a strategy for an existing set of mobile products - you’re fully up to date with relevant data:
Top mobile app download markets: a global comparison
Consumer spend by category
Monetization and revenue models for your product
Finance and payment apps: how customers are using apps for payments
Trends and predictions to stay on top of in 2024
(Department of Product)
UX - How to implement inline form validation
Error messages can disrupt a user’s flow when they’re trying to get something done. In this piece of analysis by the Baynard Institute they explore some of the critical details you need to get right when implementing inline validation, along with some industry benchmarks for comparison purposes. (Baynard Institute)
Strategy breakdown - How AWS turned costs into profits
Despite pulling in a whopping 43% of Amazon’s revenue, Amazon.com has razor-thin margins with high logistics and labor costs. In this strategy breakdown, Tom Alder explores how the company turned a cost centre profitable. (Strategy Breakdown)
Professional development - Can AI be used for performance management?
Chris Keith, head of product and design at Columbus Tech, explains why he believes AI can be used for performance management and OKR design. (Tech Radar)
Case study - How Atlassian makes distributed teams work
Unlike some other tech companies, Atlassian decided firmly against return to office mandates, instead opting for a distributed, remote-first model. In this report, the company shares the lessons they’ve learned along the way, which might help you in your role too if your company is considering a change to working patterns. (Atlassian blog)
Tools you can use
Punch - block out time in your calendar with preset time blocks, tailored to your daily schedule
Recraft - create stunning icons, artworks and visuals for your product
Handwrytten - impress your top customers and colleagues with hand written notes, written by robots
New product features, launches and announcements this week
LinkedIn has launched a new AI feature which helps people find jobs by grouping them into tailored categories. The new feature is designed to speed up the process of finding a job and categories vacancies into filterable groups like startups, enterprise or remote-first. Thanks to a fresh round of layoffs, candidates will no doubt welcome any change that helps them find their next role.
Google Maps will now work in tunnels thanks to bluetooth beacons - but only if the tunnel has them installed.
Uber is rolling out its new price flexibility feature across India. The feature allows users to set the price they’re willing to pay which drivers can either accept or reject. With social apps experimenting with new monetization models, other companies are seemingly following suit.
Microsoft has launched Copilot Pro, priced at $20 a month, marking the end of free access to the latest version of Copilot which some folks were using as an alternative to ChatGPT.
Nvidia has filed a new patent for a system that can infer emotion from speech in audio. Use cases suggested by Nvidia for the patent that could be relevant for product teams include managing customers at call centres.
📈 Product data and trends to stay informed
Consumer spending in social apps has nearly doubled between 2020 and 2023 as social media companies experiment with new types of monetization. TikTok became the first non-gaming social app to surpass $10bn and is on track to increase revenues this year. Social media is now one of the best sources of inspiration for monetization models.
Following price hikes by major streaming networks, users are cancelling their subscriptions in record numbers. 24% of US subscribers cancelled one of their streaming service subscriptions in 2023, up from 15% in 2021.
A fascinating (if a little disturbing) new study by Anthropic proved that AI models can learn strategically deceptive behaviour.
There are now 435 million gig workers globally and gig workers have started to develop their own language. Bom hang refers to the act of ghosting delivery drivers and online shops in Vietnam. Amagundane is used by gig workers in the Cape Province of South Africa to describe sellouts who refuse to unionize or participate in protests.
Investors have fled the metaverse. Total US venture funding for metaverse startups dropped sharply to just $910 million in 2023, down from $3bn+ in 2021. Startups will be hoping Apple’s entry into spatial computing will shift perceptions of the metaverse but so far it hasn’t reached product market fit.
Twitch viewership is down 25% from its 2021 peak according to TwitchTracker, with YouTube thought to be the main beneficiary of its decline.
Other product news in brief
Google is losing its Fitbit leaders and laying off hundreds of AR hardware employees.
Uber is shutting the alcohol delivery service it acquired for $1.1 billion to instead focus on its core grocery offering.
Slack’s CTO is stepping down, to be replaced by Salesforce cofounder Parker Harris.
Reddit is preparing for an IPO later this year.
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 in-depth DOP Deep dives, The Knowledge Series and Chartpacks.
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Great piece!
Just sold my shares in Apple, think there are better opportunities elsewhere and given its size, it would have to do something huge for it to provide good returns for investors.
Crazy how fast consumer spending on social apps has grown too given people's distrust of them.