Predictions 2025 for Product Hunt and product directories

Please, take it with a grain of salt. 😀 • PH already gave some beta-testers a verification badge due to bots: We can expect to be more cautious with whom we will interact in 2025. • There will be a diversity in directories: As there are more and more products, companies or individuals will try to find ways to improve their marketing, visibility, and SEO – so they will start uploading to more PH-similar platforms. • People start being cautious about launches. I have already received the same question from several people: "How can I make it to the "Featured" category?" People will start making differentiable products. (Hope so.) Do you have your own reckons?

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Nao Yukawa
Great predictions
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ShahZaib
Other product directories have to do something different that Product Hunt hasn't done yet. For competition and comparison, nothing has come close to Product Hunt yet. And that's why Product Hunt has an 'industry standard' like reputation.
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@shahza1bmushtaq their advantage lies in "historical" background. So it will be very hard to throw a shadow on this place.
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ShahZaib
@busmark_w_nika Some makers have tried throwing a shadow on Product Hunt after getting the spotlight from it and have failed miserably. Let's wait and see what 2025 unfolds.
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@shahza1bmushtaq I think it is a good to create "competition" to Product Hunt – I am for diversity.
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ShahZaib
@busmark_w_nika Competition is good for businesses, but "history" tells us that no product has ever become a competitor by damaging the reputation of its competitor.
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@shahza1bmushtaq it doesn't have to be about damaging the reputation. That kind of competition is not fair. I think the best one is that trying to improve product so customers can benefit from something better. There is fair and unfair competition and I stand for that fair.
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Andrew White
totally agree with your take on cautious launches. it feels like the days of “launch anything and see what sticks” are finally disappearing. people are starting to realize that being featured is about making something people actually care about. i'd add to the list these → micro-communities. instead of big, general directories, we’ll see niche groups forming around specific types of products or industries. think subreddits, but for product launches. → collaborative launches. instead of competing for attention, brands might team up to co-launch complementary products, pooling their audiences and boosting engagement. → reputation scoring. beyond badges, ph could implement creator scoring systems based on user interactions, feedback, and historical launches to spotlight trustworthy creators and weed out low-effort submissions.
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@andrew_white_13 in the second case, how would these companies make proportion for their "success"?
Andrew White
@busmark_w_nika i’d say each brand takes 100% of the “winnings”, eg if the collab gets product (s?) of the day, each brand is the potd. but jury is still out on that.
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@andrew_white_13 It sounds good but reality can be a little bit different because there will certainly be some "ratios" of what/who contributed more.
Anna Krivets
Insightful! Thanks!
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tina kim
Totally agree! As Product Hunt gets more crowded the value of verification badges will be critical to combat bots. I also believe directories will grow and diversify
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