Seasons Greetings from HackerNoon: Boost Stories with Translations, Speech-to-Text & More

HackerNoon’s monthly product update is here! Get ready for a brand-new mobile app version, more translation developments, a new AI Gallery, backend moves, and more! 🚀

This product update reflects changes to the platform from September 24, 2024, until November 25, 2024.

Boost Your Stories with Story Translation

Our story translation feature just got even easier to use! Now, with support for 77 languages—including Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Somali, Hebrew, and many more—getting your story translated is simpler than ever.

Before this update, you’d need to visit app.hackernoon.com/services or your story settings to purchase a translation. While those options are still available, we’ve added a streamlined method to unlock any language in just three clicks:

1. Open your story and hover over the language flag for the desired translation. Click to unlock the language.
2. Select from 1, 6, 12, or all 76 languages and enter your payment details.
3. Hit “Pay Now”—you’re set!

Expand your reach with HackerNoon Translations: grow your story’s visibility, rank in search for multiple languages, and connect with a diverse audience with ease.

Navigate HackerNoon in Every Language

Want to browse HackerNoon in your native language? We’ve got you covered!

Each of our 77 supported languages now has a custom landing page. For example, visit hackernoon.com/lang/es to see a fully localized experience: the search bar, “read” and “write” buttons, top stories, and informational sections for readers, writers, and brands are all translated. Plus, you’ll find an easy list of all available languages—click any one to explore HackerNoon in a different language.

Don’t forget—you can subscribe to any language right from the homepage!

Hit the subscribe button on the top right corner of your screen, and voilà—✨you’ll receive the translated version✨ of The HackerNoon Newsletter straight to your inbox. Enjoy your daily dose of must-read stories, expertly curated by HackerNoon editors and delivered daily at noon, Mountain Time. Learn more about our newsletters here.

Here’s what The HackerNoon Newsletter looks like:

Learn More About HackerNoon’s Translation Feature on Our New Service Page

Explore the benefits and functionality of our translation feature, and discover how you can make the most of it. Plus, take a closer look at one of our custom designs, which was built using our page builder!

HackerNoon’s AI Image Gallery Just Got a Makeover!

Our revamped AI Image Gallery now lets you explore all AI images ever created on HackerNoon.

Here’s how to dive in:

1. Use the “Most Recent” and “Oldest” tabs to browse images based on creation date.

2. Click the dropdown box on the right of your screen to filter by different AI models.

3. Try out the search function to find images using specific keywords; you’ll see every image generated with that word in the prompt.

   
   

Ready to create your own? Click “Try text to image” to open a draft where you can experiment with various image-generating models, including Stable Diffusion, Flux, Kandinsky, and more.

HackerNoon Mobile App 2.03: Speech-to-Text Mode for Instant Documentation

Our mobile app has a new writing feature with its most recent update, great for capturing ideas quickly: the speech-to-text function. Now, talking things out counts as blogging! Start your next post or outline by simply talking to the HackerNoon app. Here’s what that looks like when you talk into the HackerNoon text editor app:

Got the steps? If not, we’ll repeat: open a draft, click the mic icon, speak, and hit accept if you’re happy with the outcome - the content will be automatically added to your draft.

We’ve added tech topic pages like #bitcoin or #javascript, to organize stories by subject matter. They are discoverable in search and featured on the story page.

We’ve also extended the translation feature to our app: we’ve now added 70+ more language homepages! Just like we did for our website, remember? 😉 Just scroll down on your homepage to select your preferred language and voilá!

Auto Posting All New HackerNoon Blogs Via API On Threads, BlueSky, Twitter/X, Mastodon, Flipboard, and as Always RSS Too

Now, every published HackerNoon story is automatically shared across multiple platforms, including Pinterest, Threads, X/Twitter, Bluesky, Mastodon, FlipBoard, and via RSS. Distribution FTW! With this, hitting the publish button amplifies your content, giving it massive exposure across a wide range of networks. It’s a powerful way to boost your reach and maximize visibility with minimal effort!

Your Inbox Just Got Better

On September 24th, we introduced our new inbox and direct messaging feature—an upgraded way to connect with HackerNoon editors. This feature enhances communication through draft settings for faster, more streamlined interactions and offers an inbox where you can view all conversations between editors and writers related to your drafts. Here’s a look at what it used to be:

Now, we’re rolling out a revamped inbox UI that feels just like a messaging app.

Here’s what’s new:

• Navigate your inbox with ease using the “Open,” “Closed,” and “Unread” message filters.

• Use the search function to find specific messages

• Contact HackerNoon support via “New Chat” and select an option tailored to your query.

• Enjoy color-coded messages and threaded replies for better readability.

• Draft notes now aggregate into continuous conversations.

• Open conversations directly from drafts.

• Edit and delete messages for better control.

• Infinite scroll for seamless browsing through all conversations

• Mobile optimization for easy access on the go

• More navigation options: visit our FAQs, Help section, Editing Protocol pages

  
  

This inbox update brings you closer to a real-time, app-like experience, making draft collaboration even smoother!

New Look for the Writer Dashboard

Our developers just upgraded the database to MongoDB, so your drafts now load faster. They’ve also made drafts and published stories more visually engaging by adding story images to help you find the one you're looking for at a glance!

MongoDB Is Our New Backend Home for All Story and Business Content

We’ve moved all our stories, companies, and related data from Firebase to MongoDB, a NoSQL database. Richard Kubina, our VP of Engineering explains the reasoning behind this change:

We successfully exported Firestore records into MongoDB, as both are NoSQL databases, with the only adjustment being the conversion of Firebase's unconventional timestamp objects into standard datetime objects.

Being able to do complex aggregation queries on the database server reduces the amount of data sent over the wire, which would need to be further processed in code. This makes everything run more efficiently.

HackerNoon’s Startups of the Year 2024 Kicks Off with Record-Breaking Engagement

HackerNoon’s annual Startups ✨ of The Year 2024 was officially launched on October 1st, 2024 and it’s off to a spectacular start! With a fresh design and an all-new way to browse, nominate, and vote for your favorite startups, HackerNoon’s flagship community-driven event has hit new heights across the board.

In just over a month, Startups of the Year has racked up a massive 3.7M votes and over 151.4k nominated startups, spanning 98 industries and 2.9k cities—making this one of the most successful editions yet. Originally set to close on November 1st, the nomination period has now been extended due to high demand.

What’s new this year?

Choose from 100+ different industries and help us decide who stands out. Visit the Startups homepage and pick one of the clouds representing the diverse range of industries, enter a keyword via the search bar, or browse through our 11 different parent categories that umbrella all industries, including:

• AI Startups
• Business Startups
• Commerce Startups
• Cybersecurity Startups
• Education Startups
• Emerging Tech Startups
• Engineering Startups
• Healthcare Startups
• Media Startups
• Programming Startups
• Web3 Startups

Of course, you are welcome to nominate and vote for your favorite startups per location just like in previous years. Click on a location via the world map, use the search bar, or browse the 6 regions that encompass all 4000+ cities just like before.

❇️ One true vote: while each startup can belong to a location and up to 3 total industries, your vote for each startup is universal! Therefore, the chances that a startup is discovered and voted for this year are increased 4 fold!

Nominations (how-to here) and voting 🗳️ for the best companies are open! It’s time to spotlight & celebrate Tech’s Rising Stars. This is your chance to help us recognize and celebrate the most innovative startups of the year and their impact on the tech industry.

The winners will get a free interview on HackerNoon and an Evergreen Tech Company News page. Visit our FAQ page to learn more.

Giphy, Kaggle, Unsplash & Figma Reach Milestone Moments in Social Growth

Giphy has reached an impressive 194.3M total views since we started engaging with the platform, with a remarkable 4.9M views in the last 30 days alone, and 963.9K views in just the past week! Explore our Giphy collection here.

On Figma, our Emoji Credibility Indicators have amassed 1K users, and our Pixel Icon Library has grown to 4.2K users and counting. Join the community and check out our open-source designs here.

Over on Kaggle, our Where Startups Trend Dataset, has gained 3,506 views and 391 downloads in the past 30 days. Discover it here.

Unsplash is no exception! With a total of 6.2M views, we’ve earned 269,366 views and 1,359 downloads just in the last month. Dive into our image vault here.