Briefing: Tinder for Slack, GPTs, X’s 2024 roadmap
Plus: How the web works, Meta’s CTO on platform product creation, DuoLingo layoffs
Hi product people 👋,
It’s fair to say that Slack’s most recent redesign received mixed reviews from product teams. But now, the company has drawn inspiration from an unlikely source for its mobile app. Unveiled yesterday, Slack’s new Catch Up feature works by presenting users with a deck of Tinder-style swipeable cards for messages they may have missed. Swipe right to mark as read or left to leave it unread. Slack’s director of product Akshay Bakshi says users feel a little overwhelmed when using Slack and the mobile app is often a place where people triage messages before responding on desktop. It’s a neat concept that clearly seeks to address a very specific problem and Askhsay says the new feature will start rolling out in the next few weeks.
This week also marked the launch of OpenAI’s much anticipated GPT store. The store is envisioned to work much like an app store but since ChatGPT itself is pretty competent at so many wide ranging tasks, the big question is whether users care enough to supplement their experiences with app-like add-ons. Some of the GPTs that could be helpful for product teams include DesignerGPT for creating website designs and prototypes from scratch, AI PDF for working with PDF documents, and a GPT that helps you say no to requests at work in the most polite way possible.
While OpenAI stole the limelight for major new AI announcements this week, one company that might not be on your radar that’s worth exploring is Perplexity. It pitches itself as an ‘answer engine’ and direct competitor to Google in the AI age. Unlike Google’s results pages, Perplexity gives users a single direct answer along with multiple sources and generative AI capabilities. “If you can directly answer somebody’s question, nobody needs those 10 blue links,” says one of the founders. And since most of its revenues come from subscriptions, ad clicks aren’t relevant.
Perplexity’s website and mobile apps had 53 million visits in November and some users have added the product to their docks already. The company raised $74 million this week from investors including Jeff Bezos.
Finally, if you’re undertaking the challenge of building a product design system in this year, this bold new initiative might be of interest.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Essential reads for product teams
New from the Department of Product this week
🧠Knowledge Series: How the web actually works: the important bits worth knowing
When we're building products, we spend our days doing one thing so natural that we don't ever really think about it: typing web addresses into a browser. In this Knowledge Series, we explore how a browser actually works, the role of DNS records, caching and other concepts worth knowing about.Chartpack: Consumer and social trends Q1 2024
In this Chartpack, we explore some of the most important consumer and social trends product teams should know about in 2024. The report includes: how the next generation of younger users are using the web, emerging new hardware in 2024, security and privacy trends you need to be aware of.
(Department of Product)
UX - How to conduct a competitor usability evaluation
Competitive evaluations let you assess if your design is better or worse than your competitors and discover the relative strengths and weaknesses of competing designs. They allow you to take an in-depth look at how others solve the same design problems. This deep dive explains how you can do your own. (NN Group)
Design strategy - 6 psychological principles that help Spotify go viral every year
Learn how Spotify uses psychology to create one of the the most viral events of the year - and a product design pattern that has itself gone viral. (Growth Design)
Interview - Meta’s CTO and Head of Reality Labs on the difficulties of creating new product platforms
Creating a new product platform from scratch is extremely difficult. Even when you’re a multi-billion dollar business. In this interview Meta CTO and Head of Reality Labs Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, is joined by technologist and author of Hardcore Software Steven Sinofsky to talk about the recurring lessons of standing up new platforms, as well as writing and how AI may benefit the craft. (Podcast)
Case study - How Pinterest built its ad conversion optimisation models
Pinterest uses complex machine learning models to optimise its ad conversion products. In this post by the company’s engineering team they explain how they do it. (Pinterest Engineering)
Tools you can use
Clear 2.0 - a colorful way to manage your daily life in lists
Terra Sketcher - transform your hand drawn sketches into professional looking process diagrams
Clicks - add a physical keyboard to your iPhone to boost your typing and productivity
New product features, launches and announcements this week
Quora has announced a fresh $75m round of funding that will be used to accelerate the growth of its AI chat platform Poe. The company’s CEO, Adam D’Angelo (also an OpenAI board member), says millions of users are using Poe and his vision for the future of the company is to make Poe the easiest way for developers to build an AI chat product. If your team is considering building an AI chatbot for your own product, Poe’s API docs are worth a read.
X (formerly Twitter) has detailed plans for its 2024 product roadmap. The vision includes the application of AI to enhance the advertising experience and the launch of peer to peer payments.
Google Chrome is launching a version of the browser in cars. The beta launch will start with manufacturers Polestar and Volvo and is part of a bunch of new feature announcements from the company at tech conference CES. A new study by Salesforce, though, showed that 62% of users don’t have or use car operating systems and that users aren’t particularly keen on the proliferation of tech in cars.
Rabbit unveiled new hardware which includes a Large Action Model (LAM). The LAM works by learning how to perform specific actions like booking a holiday or making an ecommerce purchase on our behalf. If large action models represent a future where AI agents interact with products on our behalf, does this mean design teams will eventually optimise UX not for humans, but for bots?
📈 Product data and trends to stay informed
The percentage of adults who use a password manager increased from 20% in 2019 to 32% in 2023 showing that whilst users might be fatigued by privacy legislation and cookie banners, they are taking their personal security seriously. But is the future passwordless? Chartpack on consumer trends and data privacy.
A new piece of research analysed the difference between China-sensitive topics discussed on TikTok vs Instagram and shows a large gap in the number of hashtags between the two platforms. It found that China-sensitive topics were under-represented on TikTok. The company has switched off the hashtag search functionality as a result. Full study here.
Video social app Flip saw over 100% YoY growth thanks to a product referral program that went viral.
Netflix was spending $52.6 million a day on content. In 2024, the company pledged to instead follow a mantra of quality over quantity. Ad chief Amy Reinhard said yesterday that the company now has more than 23 million MAUs.
A research paper asked 2778 AI researchers for their predictions on AI progress. They said there’s a 10% chance that machines will be better than humans at all tasks by 2027, and 50% by 2047. The 2047 estimate is 13 years sooner than last year’s prediction.
Consumer spending on mobile apps saw a modest 3% increase year-over-year in 2023 to reach $171 billion across the major App stores globally.
Other product news in brief
Twilio’s co-founder and CEO has been ousted following a tussle with two activist investors.
Duolingo has announced a series of contractor layoffs as it starts to rely more on AI.
Twitch is reportedly cutting 35% of its staff, roughly 500 employees.
Tinder has unveiled its new CEO, promoting COO Faye Iosotaluno.
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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