Hello product people,

Augmented reality startup Magic Leap has taken a new leap of its own, stepping away from consumer technology and into the enterprise space in a move widely interpreted as an admission of defeat in the consumer market. After raising billions of dollars in funding - and spending over 7 years in development - Magic Leap’s first consumer offering was unveiled to the public back in 2018, along with a whopping $2,295 price tag. Initial reviews were mixed, with early users suggesting the clunky hardware and limited field of view let the device down. The company also struggled to keep costs down as it sought to own the entire stack from OS to hardware. As part of the pivot to enterprise, the company has laid off a number of employees, with some reports quoting as many 1,000 layoffs. It remains to be seen whether there is a viable consumer market for other AR devices.

Following its recent $600 million funding round at a $36 billion valuation, Stripe has announced a string of new features. One of these is the ability for Stripe customers to issue credit cards of their own. Early adopters include Zipcar who will be using the new card issuing platform to provide credit cards to car hire customers to spend on petrol and other essentials. The payments company, which counts lockdown favorites Amazon and Zoom amongst its customers, remains relatively unscathed by the impact of covid-19. Stripe now handles over 250 million API requests daily.

As governments attempt to explore ways to balance restoring economic activity with the ongoing threat of the pandemic, one startup, Landing AI, has developed a new product which aims to help employers monitor and enforce social distancing. Using neural networks, the software builds a map of people’s movements and alerts employers whenever employees break pre-defined social distancing measures. You can see the technology in action on Landing AI’s blog here.

Finally, if you had plans to attend product conferences this year and still want to get your conference fix, the folks at Product Craft have collated this handy list of the best virtual product events to attend in 2020.

Have a great week ahead!

Your product briefing

Productivity - How to become indistractable  

Nir’s second book Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life deals with a topic that is very close to my heart. If you’ve followed this newsletter, you know that I’ve struggled with distractions all my life. This new book is easily the most definitive take on dealing with distractions. (Substack)
 

Interview - YouTube’s chief product officer on fighting covid-19 misinformation

YouTube has served up around 14 billion text-based information panels with links to the CDC and WHO in recent weeks in an effort to get reliable coronavirus information to its users, YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan said during Protocol's Virtual Meetup on Thursday. "Our goal is to raise up authoritative voices," Mohan said. (YouTube)


Strategy - 9 ways to build virality into your product

At Area 120, I spend a lot of time with Googlers encouraging them to think about early product growth. It’s hard to think about virality in abstract: Most people are only consciously aware of one or two products to which they’ve invited their friends. I figured it would be useful to provide a guide to 9 common viral mechanisms. (Medium)
 

Process - Why cross cultural design really matters

Being aware of the users’ cultural background is a first sign that the project is going in the right direction. Adjusting a product to a new audience requires knowing who the users are, their needs, goals, pain points and overall culture. As much as we might live in a connected world, where information crosses the globe in a glimpse of an eye, we should not disregard that there are particular characteristics and differences in each culture. That’s a key factor. (Imaginary Cloud)
 

New product features - Google Meet rolls out gallery view

Google Meet’s new Zoom-like gallery view is rolling out across the globe “gradually” starting today, the company said in a blog post, and it should be available to everyone by end of week, Google tells The Verge. Previously, you were only able to see four people on-screen at a time, but with Meet’s new tiled layout, you’ll be able to see 16 call participants at once. Google announced the feature was on the way last week. (The Verge)
 

Design - 32 design differences between iOS and Android

Almost all the differences in this article are taken from an analysis of these guidelines. On the conceptual level, we can boil them down to the following: HIG is all about flat, light, friendly design, and it comes from a gradual rejection of skeuomorphism. Material has a number of foundational principles: material as a metaphor; bold, graphical, conscious; intentional animation; flexible foundation and cross-platform functionality. If you aren’t familiar with the guidelines, I suggest reading them through before continuing with this article. (Medium)
 

Industry analysis - What software are people buying during covid-19?

Global SaaS sales were projected to reach more than $132 Billion by the end of 2020, but since the outbreak, SaaS companies have been laying off staff, investors have been writing essays about the importance of cutting back spending and many are guessing that there will be a significant downturn in SaaS revenue. Yet… The differences between the way the world operated during the last financial crisis (2008) and the world today are significant. (Foundation Inc)


Skills - How to facilitate a UX workshop

Facilitation is core to all successful UX workshops. However, facilitating workshops can feel daunting, especially at first. What does it mean to facilitate? What are your goals as a facilitator? What should you pay attention to? These are natural, first questions to ask as you begin your journey as a facilitator. This article walks you through the fundamentals of workshop facilitation. (NN Group)
 

Accessibility tools - Color contrast checker

The Polypane color contrast checker checks against values defined by the WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines give a formula to calculate the contrast, ranging from 1 (no contrast) to 21 (black on white).Unlike many contrast checking tools, the Polypane contrast checker takes opacity into account when calculating the colors, giving you the real contrast ratio. (Polypane blog)
 

New product launch - Facebook launches Messenger Rooms

Today, we are rolling out Messenger Rooms, which are joinable group video calls that make it easy to spend quality time with friends, loved ones and people who share your interests. Create a room right from Messenger or Facebook, and invite anyone to join, even if they don’t have a Facebook account. Rooms will soon hold up to 50 people with no time limit. (Facebook product blog)
 

Opinion - Is this the end of Airbnb?

Hosts are calling it the Airbnb apocalypse. But it’s more akin to an enema. Airbnb maintains that it’s “powered by local hosts”, but the reality is quite different. Yes, there are many hosts on Airbnb who live in the properties they list on the platform. But, in many markets, including the entire of the United States, the number of “professional” hosts seemingly outnumbers those listing on Airbnb to earn a bit of extra cash from their cosy spare room. According to GlobalData, an analytics firm, Airbnb could lose a “significant portion” of its host community as a result of the pandemic. These “professional” hosts, the scourge of local residents and housing officials, could soon be flushed out of Airbnb in their thousands. (Wired)
 

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