Google's new immersive maps, Twitter edit rollout continues and Uber's PM shares PRDs, OKRs and more
Product Briefing, 6th, October 2022
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Hello product people,
As product teams, we spend an unenviable amount of time dealing with one-off internal requests. From processing GDPR requests to maintaining internal admin panels and completing random customer service problems, all these micro-tasks inevitably end up eating into valuable engineering time. Now, a new startup called Airplane is developing a toolset that will allow engineers to take one-off operations and productize them into internal tools that anyone at the company can use. The startup announced a fresh round of $32 million in funding this week and you can check out a demo of it in action here.
Amidst the turbulence of Twitter’s on / off takeover deal with Elon Musk, the company is steamrolling ahead with the launch of its eagerly anticipated edit feature. In an announcement on Monday, the company says the edit button will be now rolled out to Twitter Blue subscribers in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The edit functionality has been carefully designed to avoid misuse with the introduction of a 30-minute time window during which an edit can be made. Once a tweet is edited, it will display a timestamp showing when the edit was made. There’s been no word yet on when the feature comes to other territories, including the US.
Meanwhile, the folks at Google have announced an updated version of their Home app as it prepares to offer Matter compatibility. Matter is a new industry standard that will mean Google Home devices can interact with Apple devices and be accessed across both ecosystems. The Google Home app and Nest products generally have been plagued with problems recently and Nest currently boasts an embarrassing 1 star on TrustPilot. With the revelations this week by Google insiders that explain how employees are incentivised to 'launch' products in order to get promoted, this no doubt partly explains why Home and Nest have up until this point been shown no love. Hopefully the new iterations of Home products, along with Matter support, will usher in a new era for the smart home.
Finally, we’ve all heard of DALL-E, the tool that creates images from text. Well, now it’s time to get ready for text to video.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Your product briefing
Thursday 6th of October 2022
Podcast - Uber's Camilla Fisco shares PRD, OKR templates and more
Camilla Fisco is a product manager at Uber where she focuses on building Adtech marketing platform solutions that reach millions of users. Prior to working in product, Camilla spent time in marketing and working in the fragrance industry. (Department of Product)
New product features - Bumble is testing a new speed-dating feature
Dating app Bumble has been experimenting with a new way for its users to connect. The company has been quietly testing a speed-dating feature in its U.K. market, which allows users to join the app on a designated night and time to engage in brief chats with other members before they’ve seen their photo or matched. If the date goes well, the members can choose to match to keep the conversation going. (TechCrunch)
Design - How product managers can build a great notifications experience
Your product’s notification experience can make or break how your users perceive your application. That’s why getting the notification experience right should be at the forefront of product managers’ minds. But what, exactly, is a great notification experience for a mobile or web app? Here at Courier, we often hear this question from product managers. (Courier)
New product launches - Spark launches a new email app
Spark’s new app, which is available now for Mac (though the App Store version is still behind), Windows (for the first time), iOS, and Android, takes a completely different approach. It asks — and sometimes forces — you to be more thoughtful about how often you look at your inbox. (The Verge)
Process - How UX chunking can help your product design process
The term Chunking is a familiar term within psychology and cognitive science that indicates a memory technique in which multiple sets of information are remembered by grouping or ‘chunking’ pieces together into more memorable sets. It is used to denote a mechanism to construct a unit (chunk) which is a section of information or data used to build concepts, decisions, and other cultural elements. (UX Design)
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Twitter threads worth reading
A visual deep dive into design and development methodologies
Explainers - What’s a cache?
Nobody likes a slow web page (well, nobody that I know). But if you think about all of the stuff that needs to happen between you typing gmail.com into your browser and you actually seeing your email, it’s a complete miracle that it happens so fast – almost always in less than a second. Let’s break it out. (Technically newsletter)
Interview - Notion’s COO on how the company intends to build the next Microsoft
Notion COO Akshay Kothari says the company is still aiming to build the next Microsoft, not be the next Microsoft. And in a move signaling a new chapter of maturity, Notion has hired its first chief financial officer: Rama Katkar, Instacart’s former VP of finance. (Protocol)
Product feature spotlights
Google Maps unveils its new Immersive Viewing feature - designed to help you get a deeper understanding of a city before visiting.
Other product news in brief
Amazon discontinues Glow video calling device for kids
Celsius co-founder is departing the company
Google Stadia is closing
Duolingo makes its first acquisition
Walt Disney names Alisa Bowen as president of Disney+
Kickstarter announces Everette Taylor as its new CEO
Looking for your next role?
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Lead product manager, Knoetic (US / remote)
Knoetic is the all-in-one platform built for Chief People Officers. Powerful people analytics & the world's #1 CPO community (CPOHQ).
Senior Product Manager, Moment (US / remote)
The fastest way to turn infrastructure into a self-serve platform.