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Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

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Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#51
Not sure what your plans are but I think there are tremendous upside into bundling their solution natively into the juggernaut that is Facebook Video/Watch. As much as the company has been decried for its influence lately, it means that innovations for acquisitions get to be put in front of a billion people or two (including getting support from engineers who dedicated years to getting code to run on quirky mobile OS).

A personal note to the team, as Facebook is very much a manage-your-own-journey company: I would strongly recommend you look into professional application, as in, Workplace.

A. that means a free trip to London for you, which is always cool. You get to meet more people with whom to joke: “It’s in the middle of a swamp! — I know — Why?! – I don’t know.”

B. there are tons of applications, roughly empowering internal equivalent to Coursera. Any solution that I know about (and it’s alas a lot: worked for 20+ companies) is bad, expensive, dysfunctional and impractical.

Getting people to use video to document their workflow, think about edge-cases, etc. is the most impactful thing I can imagine because it introduces billions into structured logic in their tasks, allows them to step from code-as-Excel-spreadsheet into code-as-a-system.

Workplace is already teaching a lot of businesses to be open, transparent, interest-driven, to record interaction for later use without closely-defined audience, etc. That happens a lot through Workplace videos — in spite of that tool being very feature-poor. Adding editing, slide-control and later something closer to choose-your-own-adventure, tests, etc. that would be incredible.

I hope you can demonstrate that there is a lot of great things to be done with interactive videos.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#52
post #47
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it so hard to admit thay you sold out and are working for an evil company? Yes, you're not killing baby seals or helping give people cancer. You're just working for the company that surveils a large part of humanity, tries to get them addicted to tapping stuff, deceives them into buying stuff, "accidentally" gets involved into election manipulation, etc. They're also working hard at getting their hands on medi…

Maybe you're right; but attacking someone personally is not an ok way to express how right you are on HN. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I don't want to be right, I want the people that are abusing others to realise that they are doing a bad thing.

My message was too inflammatory and I have to rethink my approach to not run afoul of the rules. This has to be said though: a large reason people think it's ok to work for companies like Facebook is because there's almost no social pressure against it, including here.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#53

Before he started Vidpresso, Randall was helping out my YC batch with feedback on their demo day pitches. It wasn't his job - he was just being helpful. The nicest guy you'd ever meet. Props to Randall on all the hard work building Vidpresso over the years - and congrats on the exit!

>> The nicest guy you'd ever meet.

...Or most scheming. Obviously his strategy worked out for him. Truly nice people don't care about making money so they wouldn't apply to Y Combinator to begin with.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#54

Yet another example that if people want to put their money where their mouth is w.r.t not being bought out, only trust a not for profit organization.

>> only trust a not for profit organization

Not a very good heuristic, people always find ways to profit from so-called 'non-profits'.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#55
post #51

Not sure what your plans are but I think there are tremendous upside into bundling their solution natively into the juggernaut that is Facebook Video/Watch. As much as the company has been decried for its influence lately, it means that innovations for acquisitions get to be put in front of a billion people or two (including getting support from engineers who dedicated years to getting code to run on quirky mobile OS…

The latter part of your comment sounds like "The Circle." Does every interaction need to be recorded and logged?

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#56
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future holds advertising and collecting usage data, what else can it hold?

That is a little too reductionist. It can hold a lot of things. Millions of people get all of their facts and information from live video. A lot of it is delivered by cable tv right now, but in the same way that TV news overtook newspapers, Facebook will overtake cable. People have watched moon landings, walls falling, and the birth and death of democracies, all live--and there were always advertisers paying the bill…

Advertisers are just a bunch of people paying money to blast our ears and eyes with spam about their products. They're not philantropists. They're not financiers.

Facebook is a vehicle for said spam, disguised as a social network. Yes, it has to offer some value, otherwise no one would stare at the ads.

Putting Facebook and advertising in charge of providing facts and information is a stupefyingly bad idea. It's already shown that it can't provide either.

And if they really want to do it, then they should be regulated.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#58
post #51

Not sure what your plans are but I think there are tremendous upside into bundling their solution natively into the juggernaut that is Facebook Video/Watch. As much as the company has been decried for its influence lately, it means that innovations for acquisitions get to be put in front of a billion people or two (including getting support from engineers who dedicated years to getting code to run on quirky mobile OS…

The latter part of your comment sounds like "The Circle." Does every interaction need to be recorded and logged?

I’m not talking about interactions but processes: things that other part of the organisation relies upon. Think things like bus-factor.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#59
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a little too reductionist. It can hold a lot of things. Millions of people get all of their facts and information from live video. A lot of it is delivered by cable tv right now, but in the same way that TV news overtook newspapers, Facebook will overtake cable. People have watched moon landings, walls falling, and the birth and death of democracies, all live--and there were always advertisers paying the bill…

Advertisers are just a bunch of people paying money to blast our ears and eyes with spam about their products. They're not philantropists. They're not financiers. Facebook is a vehicle for said spam, disguised as a social network. Yes, it has to offer some value, otherwise no one would stare at the ads. Putting Facebook and advertising in charge of providing facts and information is a stupefyingly bad idea. It's alre…

I agree that regulation is a good idea. Throughout history, news and facts have always been provided to most people by groups with vested interests in controlling the prevailing narrative. It started in churches, moved to papers and has taken a lot of forms over the years. Moneyed parties have always used their resources to sell products, ideas, and agendas via these channels. Companies like Facebook are different because they allow near-universal access.

Facebook doesn't provide the information, they provide a platform and tools for anybody to be a publisher. Anything they can do to improve the platform is a good idea.

All this is to say: Facebook has done a great thing by bringing Randall and co. on board and should continue to bring new ideas and talent in, through whatever means they can.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#60
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... [cricket] ... [pavlov questions the meaning of his/her work] ... [cricket]

I'm not sure I follow this one but if you meant it rudely, that's a violation of the site guidelines and not ok here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I sincerely hope everyone - particularly people working in surveillance and advertising - question both the meaning and impact of their work.

Yes I was brash and a bit sardonic, but I was not trying to put anyone down. I should have phrased that more encouragingly and less mockingly. Thanks for the feedback.

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