HackerNoon’s monthly product update is here! 🚀 Explore your new reading recommendations, new mobile app inbox, words written stats, and more!
This product update reflects changes to the platform from February 4, 2025, until April 7th, 2025.
Our notification board has been revamped to make all your alerts more relevant than ever! Click the notification bell or visit app.hackernoon.com/notifications to browse:
- All Notifications – View all notifications, both personalized and general.
- For You – See recommended stories based on your reading history, our Editing Protocol, and a lite AI layer. In the future, we plan to recommend even more relevant content, including users and companies to follow!
- Engagement – Track community interactions, such as replies to your comments and reactions to your stories. We’ve also added action-based activities, allowing users to take direct actions from their notifications!
- Announcements – Stay updated on contests, profile suggestions, and new features.
Try it out!
One year ago, we launched “The Pixel Icon Library by HackerNoon”, an open-source collection of pixelated icons designed using a 24px grid for perfect alignment and consistency. Inspired by our retro aesthetic, these icons encapsulate the internet’s golden era.
Since launch, the library has reached:
- 6,100+ users on Figma
- 3,100+ downloads on NPM
Now, you can browse over 1,440 pixelated icons at pixeliconlibrary.com. The site features a responsive design, search function, and filters for easy navigation.
Get the Pixel Icon Library on:
💚 GitHub Repository
💚 Figma Community
💚 NPM
💚 Official Website
We invite designers, developers, and enthusiasts to explore, contribute, and integrate these icons into their projects. Our icons are free to use with proper accreditation to HackerNoon and the Pixel Icon Library.
How We Built It
Our in-house designer, Devansh Chaudhary, documented the process in two in-depth articles:
Here’s what our users had to say:
HackerNoon’s mobile app suffered another two updates which include an inbox and messages reaction implementation, plus reading recommendations and other design shifts. Let’s dive in.
2.04 Release – Welcome to Your Blogging Inbox!
Now, you can message HackerNoon editors directly in the app! Need feedback or publishing tips? Just ask in your Blogging Inbox.
How it works:
- Click the message icon (top-right corner)
- Start a new chat, type, and send -> Your message will be directed to the right person
- Long-press messages to react
You can also check open, closed and unread dms and use the search function to find particular discussions.
Behind the scenes, i.e. on the backend, our primary database is now MongoDB, enhancing blog post speed, scalability, and our ability to generate lists of relevant tech blog posts.
2.05 Release – Reading Suggestions, Fewer Distractions & Smarter API Calls
This release more subtly hides navigation, putting the blog post itself more front and center. We rewrote some API calls and built a new Comments API. Quality comments made in this app get boosted on HackerNoon.com and around the web.
Lastly, just like on our website, we added a new notification board. In short, click the notification bell and browse through all your notifications, hit “For you” to check recommended stories based on your interests, and “Engagement” to track how the community has been engaging with you, ex: reply to your comments, react to your stories, etc.
📲 Update your app now on Apple and Google Play – it’s free!
Want better insights for your blog? HackerNoon now visualizes your content with a word cloud via the Words Written by Writer feature 📈
How to use it:
- Go to your stats page
- Click “Words Written”
- Browse your most used and unique words (you can even see word frequencies!)
This tool can be super useful to refine your blog posts for better SEO, trend spotting, or simply boosting your blog strategy by pinpointing popular keywords ✍️
You can now easily quote directly from a story in your comment. Simply highlight the text you want to quote, click the quotation mark symbol that appears at the top of the highlighted section, and it will be inserted into a new comment at the bottom of the story. From there, just add your thoughts and click “Add Comment” to share it.
In just a few clicks, a HackerNoon account can turn into a standalone site. This year, we are building a 500+ owned network of sites via the HackerNoon CMS with a focus on curating and distributing the world’s highest-quality open-source content. HackerNoon sites are now going live every week. Some WIP examples include: LearnRepo.com, Memeology.tech, HackerNoon.tech, EditingProtocol.com, Escholar.tech, TextModels.tech, Blog.DavidSmooke.Net, HackerNoon.LinhDaoSmooke.com, PublicDomain.tech, LegalPDF.tech, OpenDatasets.tech, Roasts.tech, CompanyBrief.tech, StoryTemplates.tech, SupportNoon.com, UnknownAuthor.tech, Noonion.tech, HackerEvents.tech, DearElon.tech, Blog.Slogging.com, CoinWikis.com, Noonification.com, HistoricalEmails.com, and more coming soon!
In line with fostering community and free flow of ideas and engagement in these websites, we’ve just made commenting available on all of these websites. Like so:
Check it out for yourself: open any of our CMS sites or click here for a real life example.
We’re on a mission to make HackerNoon even better! That’s why on February 24th, we launched two surveys to gather your thoughts on what you love about HackerNoon, what we could improve, and how we can continue to enhance your experience.
So far, we’ve had 500+ surveys completed, which is fantastic, but here’s the catch: only a small percentage of participants have completed both surveys and are eligible for the big prizes. This means there’s still a significant opportunity for you to enter and win!
To make sure you’re in the running for those grand prizes, here’s what you need to do:
- Complete the Reader and Writer Survey 👉 Complete it here
- Complete the Mobile App Survey 👉 Log in to the HackerNoon app, click the green button on your homepage that reads “Your Input Can Win You An iPad”, and go through the questions.
- Give Thoughtfull Feedback
To thank our community for helping us in this task, we’re sweetening the deal by offering Story Boosts, Story Translations and even an iPad 10th Gen, Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones and Official HackerNoon merch! Learn more here.
You have one month left to complete our survey:
📋 Take the Reader & Writer Survey → Complete it here
📱Take the Mobile App Survey → Available on the app homepage
🗓️ Deadline: April 30, 2025 – Winners announced in May.
Startups of The Year 2024, The End
We’ve just closed our 6 months long campaign, Startups ✨ of The Year 2024. With over 4.3M votes aggregated and 151.4k startups nominated across 2.9k cities and 98 industries, this edition has been our largest yet! Thank you for supporting the startups making a change!
What Does This Mean for Startups?
Being nominated among so many remarkable companies is an achievement in itself. Winning signifies that your startup ranks in the top 1%, making a significant impact globally and surpassing thousands of other contenders. You have every reason to brag!!!
As we meticulously tally the votes, we appreciate your patience. Winners will be announced soon, and we look forward to celebrating the outstanding achievements of the top startups.
💚 For our winners
Here’s your prize breakdown:
▫️Pride and validation from the HackerNoon team and community members.
▫️Winner Interview.
▫️Evergreen Tech Company News Page.
▫️HackerNoon Merchfor selected winners. Terms and conditions apply.
💚For Our Runner-Ups and All Nominees
Your efforts are commendable, and you too will receive a special token of appreciation for your dedication and innovation.
Stay tuned for the winner announcements!
