Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#111

Post by encoderer » Sat, Mar 29, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #35

officemonkey wrote: post #10

I think it's because nobody understands what FB is going to do with it. Instagram definitely has location and social graph data to exploit. But Oculus? What is FB going to do with that? I think most people still think of FB as the site and advertising sales for the site. But if you see FB as a conglomerate like Google, Apple, and Sony then it makes more sense. FB is diversifying, buying up promising technology with t…

This is more of a statement of why Facebook's stock dropped by 15%. Investors are baffled by this purchase by Facebook. Outrage on the Oculus Rift side has to do more with the indie "spirit" that it gained by starting off as a Kickstarter company.

Possibly you were only looking at FB last week. If you widen your gaze you'll see the entire tech sector took a correction -- especially "momo" momentum-driven high p/e stocks. You simply can't view what happened to FB share price as a market reaction to Oculus.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#112

Post by bane » Sat, Mar 29, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

encoderer wrote: post #99

bane wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does Google create self-driving cars to show ads on the windshields? What do you think people will be doing on the boring non-interactive self-driven commute? The same thing they do on long bus or train rides. Surf the internet. That's always been Google's goal. The intersection of people with cars and people with internet connected smartphones is huge . Get people's eyes off the road and onto a Google product is t…

Is it? Because I don't buy that. You're trying to apply a consumer product strategy like this was a business decision. This is clearly a pet interest from Brin or Page or both. And besides, it seems far more lucrative to monetize the tech itself. If we sold 5 million self driving cars a year (just a fraction of the total domestic market) and Google sold the whole rig to automakers at $5k, that's $25bn in sales. World…

> And besides, it seems far more lucrative to monetize the tech itself. If we sold 5 million self driving cars a year (just a fraction of the total domestic market) and Google sold the whole rig to automakers at $5k, that's $25bn in sales. Worldwide the market for cars is 10x that so it's $25bn w/ room to grow.

Either way, doesn't matter. People won't just stare off into space for their hour commute while the car does the driving. They'll want to do something. Hell people who are in the act of driving can barely keep their attention on task for more than 10 minutes.

What's better, licensing the tech to get people's faces looking at screens, or building your own cars to get people's faces looking at screens?

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#113

Post by corysama » Sat, Mar 29, 2014, 4:28 PM UTC

SixSigma wrote: post #83

Geee wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you see it? Facebook can't currently monetize face-to-face interactions, but in virtual reality they can. The purchase makes a lot of sense for Facebook. Facebook's business model is to monetize human interactions. Today, most of human interaction happens over the Internet (with messages and images), and in the future, it will happen in virtual environments. VR will be the ultimate platform, and Facebook wants…

How will you do a face to face interaction when you are both wearing VR goggles ?

You and I can be in different locations. But, with the goggles on, we can be face to face inside VR.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#114

Post by danabramov » Sat, Mar 29, 2014, 4:28 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #101

danabramov wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? The only reason to own a VR problem is to stick in “sign in via some website that used to be popular in the old web“ button? What would it give them anyway? Drive up Facebook usage on the old web? I don't understand why most people think Facebook is so dumb in this thread.

> I don't understand why most people think Facebook is so dumb in this thread. Because Facebook is dumb. For all the talk of vision, FB is nothing more than organic growth around Zuck's desire to get lists of fellow students on his campus into a directory. FB in 2006 is barely a different experience than FB in 2014. And none of the changes made so far can be charitably described as "smart". For all the wealth of info…

>FB is nothing more than organic growth

You seem to be underestimating how difficult organic growth is. (In terms of product design, not engineering. And yes, Facebook circa 2006 is great product design because it was what people wanted.)

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#115

Post by bane » Sat, Mar 29, 2014, 4:28 PM UTC

danabramov wrote: post #78

venomsnake wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Zuckeberg is in charge. I just don't think he could thing of anything interesting. FB was just a landgrab. The product has a/ stagnated b/ gone worse depending on why you ask.

Have you seen Paper?

Does anybody use Paper?

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#116

Post by encoderer » Sat, Mar 29, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #101

danabramov wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? The only reason to own a VR problem is to stick in “sign in via some website that used to be popular in the old web“ button? What would it give them anyway? Drive up Facebook usage on the old web? I don't understand why most people think Facebook is so dumb in this thread.

> I don't understand why most people think Facebook is so dumb in this thread. Because Facebook is dumb. For all the talk of vision, FB is nothing more than organic growth around Zuck's desire to get lists of fellow students on his campus into a directory. FB in 2006 is barely a different experience than FB in 2014. And none of the changes made so far can be charitably described as "smart". For all the wealth of info…

Facebook has been taking their product to market for the last 8 years. What would you have them do? Change their product for the sake of it when it's still growing -- worldwide?

Innovation in tech is still laudable innovation. Cassandra. Scribe. Thrift. React. Tech that is widely used.

I don't think FB is as important to our industry as some other companies, but no, they're not dumb.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#117

Post by threeseed » Sat, Mar 29, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #57

codeflo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part that stuck out for me as well. They quite plainly state that they knew this would alienate their existing audience, and that they were perfectly fine with that.

And in the end, it's their choice anyway. People respond mostly negatively because of their expectations about how Facebook will monetize this. It's now up to Facebook to prove them wrong. I personally think it's not going to be as bad. Oculus has a clear path to monetization, while Facebook, with their other products, have always been struggling to monetize their user base, which lead them to implement controversial…

Why do people think Facebook has a problem making money ? They had over $7 billion in revenue in 2013.

And should they ever decide to compete with Google's AdSense they would be able to make a significant amount more.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#118

Post by threeseed » Sat, Mar 29, 2014, 4:37 PM UTC

teacup50 wrote: post #86

stingraycharles wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the end, it's their choice anyway. People respond mostly negatively because of their expectations about how Facebook will monetize this. It's now up to Facebook to prove them wrong. I personally think it's not going to be as bad. Oculus has a clear path to monetization, while Facebook, with their other products, have always been struggling to monetize their user base, which lead them to implement controversial…

> "Oculus has a clear path to monetization" "Monetization" is a bastardization of a term that was necessary to describe how non-profitable companies could somehow make money from giving away their product for free -- usually by abusing the userbase they're handing the free product to. See the second paragraph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetization I think what you meant to say is: "Oculus has a clear product that…

> Facebook doesn't know how to make and sell a product that isn't their own users

And how is this any different to Google ? They have exactly the same business model as Facebook.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#119

Post by bane » Sat, Mar 29, 2014, 4:39 PM UTC

danabramov wrote: post #114

bane wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why most people think Facebook is so dumb in this thread. Because Facebook is dumb. For all the talk of vision, FB is nothing more than organic growth around Zuck's desire to get lists of fellow students on his campus into a directory. FB in 2006 is barely a different experience than FB in 2014. And none of the changes made so far can be charitably described as "smart". For all the wealth of info…

>FB is nothing more than organic growth You seem to be underestimating how difficult organic growth is. (In terms of product design, not engineering. And yes, Facebook circa 2006 is great product design because it was what people wanted.)

Organic growth is execution and engineering, not innovation. FB in 2006 is a good design, and magically hit upon what people wanted, an easier to use private email system with a public announcement board.

Is FB 2014 fundamentally different? Is there innovation? How about FB's other acquisitions, are they innovative or just derivative? Hint: If it's in the social space, it's just derivative. FB acquires purely to secure and reinforce this one-trick pony it's on. If e-mail was run by a single company they'd buy that too.

Innovation is not in the company DNA, especially if it doesn't support the path they're on. That's why the only outcome of this is strapping an OVR to your face and getting bombarded by irrelevant ads and "join my game?" requests, but now in 3d or some other "fitting" of the acquisition into the existing and larger "social" momentum the company is on.

Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

#120

Post by Turing_Machine » Sat, Mar 29, 2014, 4:39 PM UTC

Geee wrote: post #82

danabramov wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you seriously believe this? Then there will be competitors without ads.

You can't compete with 'without ads' business model. Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these. These services (and companies) operate around the idea of giving away free candy and locking everyone in with network effects. This is what will happen to VR as well under Facebook's control.

"Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these."

They did? What about Yahoo, Alta Vista, WebCrawler, MySpace, Friendster...?