📬 This Week In Product #1
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💡 Interesting Technology
I was using Shuttl in the months prior to the lockdown as my primary mode of commute. What caught my attention was their never seen before in-App user authentication system. They figured that it would be time-consuming for the bus drivers to manually input verification code or scan QR code to onboard each passenger so instead, they turned towards this novel technology capable of sending data over voice to perform this authentication task.
Curious to see it in works? watch this short video of the Shuttl App
On further digging in through the documentation pages of Shuttl, I found that a company named Chirp was behind the development of this Software Development Toolkit (SDK). It works like an audio QR code — transferring data over sound using only a speaker and a microphone. They offer this technology to transfer both audible and ultrasonic data over audio.
Here’s a diagram to explain the same
What is Audio QR?
Much more similar to your Bluetooth and NFC, it allows you to make the transactions over the connected devices. With Audio QR, two devices placed, within the suitable diameter range may interconnect. Using the ultrasonic sound system, it identifies the other user through the sound and permits you to transfer the data, without sharing any sensitive information.
Here’s a short video
How Mobile Apps can use Audio QR feature?
Some of the popular use cases include -
- Mobile Apps Security
- Social Networking Apps
- Identity recognition solutions
- Payment Wallet Apps
One such app that is using Audio QR is the Google Tez App- The most popular digital wallet app.🚀 Product Launch of the week
Well, It’s a pseudo launch — I guess by now most of you must have already heard about this major upgrade by Facebook. They rolled out the all-new Facebook.com with simplified navigation and dark mode
No, we are not just going to stop here discussing only the new simple design and the dark mode. There’s a lot that went behind the upgrade — A complete Tech Stack Re-architecting using React (a declarative JavaScript library for building user interfaces) and Relay (a GraphQL client for React).
It’s no surprise that Facebook was started 16 years back in 2004 as a simple, server-rendered PHP website, and since so much has changed on the web over the course of the past decade.
The reason for this major upgrade is that Facebook’s existing tech stack wasn’t able to support the app-like feel and performance as needed. Even though for a behemoth platform like Facebook, a complete rewrite is extremely rare, but in this case, it was crucial to make the platform feature-rich and adaptable to changes in the coming years.
I would strongly recommend going through the official redesign documentation released by Facebook.
⭐ Product Feature of the week
Instagram — Business Profiles on Instagram can now add Support CTAs (Click To Actions) To Their Profile.
If you have a business profile then now in addition to adding those new CTAs to your Stories, you can also add CTAs for “Gift Cards,” “Order Food,” and “Donate” in the form of clickable buttons on your profile.
When users click, they’ll be taken straight to your chosen platform so that they’re able to complete their purchase.
These CTAs will appear next to current clickable options like “Contact” and “Message” on your profile.
⚙️ Tool I want to share
Figma ~ Design | Prototype | Collaborate
Last weekend I was attending a webinar on Product Management (yet again) and during the Q/A round one of the participants said that she feels spoiled by Figma. Hmmm now that’s a very strong statement.
Intrigued, I thought of checking out the tool myself. Indeed, I personally found this cloud-based platform intuitive and easy to use. It offers quite many features to create wireframes, prototypes and UI flows.
Why should you consider using it?
- Access files anywhere with Internet access
- Worry-free editing and collaboration with version history
- Plugins for everything: Stock imagery, flow diagrams, color accessibility, charts, icons, and more.
For starters, one can use the free plan which includes -
- 3 projects with a 30-day version history for up to 2 editors
- Unlimited cloud storage and free viewers
📄 A Resource to Bookmark!
Whether you’re an engineer, a product manager, a start-up founder, or a product designer, learning how to design scalable systems will inadvertently help you in the overall broader journey of product development.
System design is a broad topic but a crucial one and there is a vast amount of resources scattered throughout the web on system design principles.
This repo is an organized collection of resources to help you learn how to build systems at scale.
System Design Primer — This GitHub page is the holy-grail for System Design.
🎧 Podcast of the week
How I Built This by NPR hosted by Guy Raz in conversation with Whitney Wolfe
Theme: Entrepreneurship & Start-up
I was 22 (last year) when I listened to this particular episode. I was both surprised and in awe of this young woman who at 22, played a pivotal role in launching Tinder, one of the world’s most popular dating apps, and was instrumental in fueling the popularity of the App on college campuses thereby growing its user base.
She later became vice president of marketing for Tinder and but a few years later, she left Tinder and filed a lawsuit against the company alleging sexual harassment.
The ensuing attention from the media — and cyberbullying from strangers — prompted her to launch Bumble, a dating app where women make the first move.
Today, the Bumble app has been downloaded close to 30 million times.
🌐 From the Internet
Well, this week it’s not an article per se but an interesting internal memo which I came across on the internet. It was originally sent by Steve Jobs then at Apple to James Murdoch from Harper Collins in 2010.
It’s not a hidden fact that Jobs had an amazing ability to speak with passion and make his ideas understandable and memorable by telling stories and demonstrations.
Don’t believe me? Watch this video of Jobs introducing the Macintosh.
Below is an excerpt from the infamous email thread where Steve is negotiating iBook pricing/access.
Interested in reading the entire piece?
👩💻 Activity Prompt for you
Suggest a Product Feature Recommendation for LinkedIn to improve their home page. Tweet or share your ideas and don’t forget to tag #twip or #thisweekinproduct or simply give it a thought, reason it out and note it down somewhere.
Though I would recommend actually putting it out somewhere for people to critique :)
I would love to hear from you!
As always, if you’d like to drop me a note, you can email me at contact@simranpandey.com or find me on Twitter at @simranpandey97, on LinkedIn at @simran-pandey, and on Medium at @simranpandey97
If there’s any specific topic that you want me to write on or if you simply want to give some feedback then you can use this short form here
