Find and Promote New Music Tech Sites and Apps With Product Hunt
Product Hunt is an increasingly popular site, launched late last year, that posts links to new websites and apps (the products in question). It seems to be taking on some cult dimensions in tech circles and it's now on my short list of sites to check daily. If you're about keeping up with all things new and refurbished in the music tech space, Product Hunt will definitely help you do that. And if you're looking for attention for your startup, it's another place you should be sending your link.
What's Product Hunt?
Product Hunt, the product, gives the user a daily list of links to mostly new or recently redesigned sites and apps. It's very much designed for in the moment browsing though it's possible that the comments may have some archival value especially as more folks get involved.
Anybody can submit a link but there is a team curating choices and they also curate who can comment and join though they are developing ways for those they let in to let others in. You can find out more about how to get involved or get your site included here.
The basic idea is that Product Hunt prefers sites and apps that are new and ready to be played with. They're sometimes open to prelaunch stages when there's evidence of an actual product but that's on a case-by-case basis.
While they emphasize new, "lesser known" may also get you included as could product updates that are "substantial, such as the launch of a mobile app or complete product redesign with new functionality."
That said, in the last week of posts I saw a non-music site that launched in 2008 and their last big redesign was last year. But they got a lot of funding in the spring and may be in an area in which the Product Hunt team is unfamiliar. Or maybe they just dug the product and posted.
Think They'll List My Site?
My best guess at this stage, based on that inclusion and one or two others, is that if your site design looks contemporary and it has a clear, solid concept then it's worth submitting no matter when you launched especially if you haven't gotten a lot of play in major tech blogs.
You can search Product Hunt for music to see what's there. I can't link to the search and they use endless scrolling that makes it a little hard to know how much is in there but, honestly, the majority of music tech companies that have contacted me since I've been at Hypebot who have contemporary design would fit in this list.
That said, they do get hundreds of submissions a day so the issue is similar to getting posted at Hypebot (though with less competition). It's often not a matter of whether or not you're worthy but of whether or not you rise to the top of that day or week's selection of worthy options.
So do check out Product Hunt and, if you've got a site that fits, let them know.
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) also blogs at DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
