Restream

Multi-stream live video

‘Any piece of content needs to have a delivery channel to reach an audience. In the digital world, those channels can multiply quickly – for example, Facebook might be where you speak to your older audience, whereas YouTube or Twitch might be where you engage the younger crowd. But what if you'd like to share the same content, in real time, to all of those audiences simultaneously? Enter Restream: it's a quick and easy way to live-stream your video content – from a fireside chat to a customer interview or a product review – to all of your different channels with the click of a single button.’

Pros

• ‘The platform allows you to add slick graphics, title cards, name badges and more to turn your simple video into a production worthy of prime-time television.’

• ‘Restream makes it accessible for a team of one or two to produce content and digital experiences that many would think a huge crew is needed for.’

Cons

• ‘It does require some technical know-how to sync it up with your various channels. That said, it has a handful of simple guides to help you get started.’

Cost 

Free – but $16 per month for the standard package and $41 for the professional package.

Softr

Turn your spreadsheet data into an app or website

‘Nowadays, the gap between having a great idea and shipping a digital product into the world is widened by one small thing: knowing how to code. Softr aims to solve that with an all-in-one no-code website builder. The premise is this: much of the data that makes any website or application run often lives in a spreadsheet somewhere. If you're on the more modern side of that world, that data may live in Airtable, a web-based spreadsheet tool. If Airtable is the database layer of your application or website, then Softr is the seamless front-end that takes little to no time to set up.’ 

Pros

• ‘It's perfect for building quick internal apps for your team, creating a lightweight website for a resource directory or marketplace.’

• ‘It requires zero coding skills.’

Cons

• ‘It's fairly restricted to Airtable for now – so, if your data lives elsewhere, or if you have no desire to transfer or train yourself on Airtable, it won't be for you yet.’ 

Cost

Free – but $24 per month for the starter package, $65 for professional and $165 for business.

Jasper

AI-powered copywriting

‘Writing is likely the most important skill in today's digital economy. The ability to concisely and articulately convey a problem, a solution or a story can convince a customer to buy, a reader to engage or a person to care. But writing is time-consuming and hard. That's where Jasper comes in. As artificial intelligence (AI) has improved in recent years, the team at Jasper have pointed that power towards helping the everyday person write faster, better and more effectively. For the busy marketer, Jasper can be the difference between having a content strategy that starts and ends with crickets and one that's robust, engaging and impactful.’

Pros

• ‘It's preloaded with templates for blog post titles, product descriptions, SEO-optimized copy and more.’

• ‘You can convert content into clear and concise writing in more than 25 different languages.’

Cons

• ‘Like any AI, the output is only as good as the input. You have to dedicate time and effort into what you tell Jasper about your product, blog post or ad copy, so that it can spit out something great.’

Cost

From $29 per month.

A version of this article was first published in Courier issue 47, June/July 2022. To purchase the issue or become a subscriber, head to our webshop.