I'm working on a guide to writing compelling software release announcements. What are your favorite examples of products who write great release announcements? What are some anti-patterns companies should avoid?
For example, this is a release announcement that I think does a good job of high-signal, low-noise, focus on user-impacting improvements: https://phanpy.social/#/m.mtlynch.io/s/114591673427625686
May 29, 2025, 1:04 PM@michael anti-pattern: auto-compiled from "conventional commits" with no human input.
@adam 100% agree
May 29, 2025, 1:22 PM@michael I'll throw an outsider pick into the ring and say DotA 2 patch notes like the latest one: https://www.dota2.com/springforward2025 .
They are great at highlighting large themes of changes, the websites are gorgeous and they still have a very low level and clear changelog if you want to dig deeper.
I also like that they are explaining the thinking behind many changes, that is done very rarely for normal software I feel.
May 29, 2025, 1:22 PM@michael Otherwise: Not sure this is the kind of release you mean, but an obvious and boring answer is the "bug fixes and performance improvements" waste of a sentence. Otherwise, I had some fun reading announcements from discord with the playful/branded tone, but I assume they are not for everyone.
@rhazn Yes, definitely agree about "bugfixes and improvements." I'm going to have an impassioned rant against that in the chapter.
@rhazn Nice, that's a great example!
May 30, 2025, 6:00 AM@michael skydemon (a route-planning and moving map for private pilots) has IMO great changelogs: https://www.skydemon.aero/help/versionhistory?product=All&embedded=False
The log gets shown in the website, in the playstore, and when you start a new version it asks if you want to see the changelog, it will have a built-in viewer for them.