Good morning!  My heart goes out to the poor Oregon State student who ordered some delicious munchies, only for the food delivery robot to get crushed by a freight train... Sounds like someone forgot to include train crossings in the PRD 😅

Wait... They shipped what!?

AirBnB rolled out an Ambassador feature for new host onboarding.

Details: The onboarding feature pairs new hosts with experienced Superhosts who guide them through the setup and listing process. Some highlights include:

• New hosts can request help from Superhosts with similar properties

• Superhosts can be given access to directly tweak listings

• $50-150 payout for Superhosts once a new hosts first guest checks out

Why it matters: It's rare for companies to incentivize power users to help out with onboarding, but given AirBnB tested the feature for a year pre-rollout, we can assume that the economics work out and that there's sufficient demand from hosts.

It's a wild move as far as onboarding optimizations go, but the Superhost payout makes sense for AirBnB as it gives hosts more ways to make money, increases new host activation, and reduces AirBnB's customer support costs.

Separately, despite recent complaints from hosts about reduced demand, AirBnB saw a 30% increase in Q3 bookings. As a result, it's not surprising that the company's willing to make some left field moves to pad up the host side of its marketplace. 

What to watch: So far 1.5k Superhosts have signed up, out of 980k total. It'll be interesting to see what % of Superhosts sign up, and what % of new hosts seek assistance from existing Superhosts.

Features & products hot off the press

Big tech

• AirBnB rolls out a slew of host-focused features

• YouTube launches a global ad target frequency feature 

• Amazon Ring pilots getting local agencies onto its Neighbors app 

• Google's Pixel Watch gets Fitbit's sleep profile feature 

• Twitter to kill "sent from device" labels on Tweets

• Microsoft Teams announces social gaming functionality

• Snapchat ships features & experiences for the FIFA World Cup 

General and early-stage

• Linktree ships tool letting creators more easily paywall content

• DuckDuckGo opens App Tracking Protection to all Android users

• Wyze unveiled a pair of mesh Wi-Fi routers 

• Yubo expands real-time audio moderation to UK, Australia, Canada 

• Backbone launches an Android version of its mobile gaming controller

• Hinge adds new features for non-monogamous relationships

• Waabi unveils its first self-driving trucks

Getting 1% better at building product

• Roadmap - The charcuterie framework for roadmap planning, by Jackie Bavaro

• UX - How to avoid feature bloat, by Andrea Saez 

Broader tech happenings

• Sunk cost. ASX killed an ongoing long-term blockchain settlement project

• End of an era. Evernote is acquired by Bending Spoons

• Not representative. Tech layoffs are an outlier in broader robust job market

• Diving in. Microsoft & Nvidia team up on Azure-hosted AI supercomputer

• Clamping down. Google Play streamlines policies around kids apps 

Courtesy of mindless Twitter scrolling

@Carnage4Life

@ParikPatelCFA

And that’s a wrap for today. Stay tuned for more!

-  Amol