- It’s amazing. You strap on some gear, and then you’re inside whatever world you want. It showed up in books, it showed up in movies, and everyone dreamed about it. Problem was, it kinda sucked. I tried Dactyl Nightmare at an amusement park, and it kinda sucked. Huge wires, unconvincing tracking, horrible visual fidelity. VR kept sucking for a long time, and people kinda gave up on it.
But then something happened. Or, well, it had already happened, but nobody realized. The technology was finally here to do proper virtual reality. The team behind Oculus Rift realized this, and built the first prototype of VR that was finally just good enough to be usable, and it was only going to get better and better. They set up a kickstarter to fund their enthusiasm, and a lot of people got excited. They made about ten times the money they asked for, and I was one of the top-level backers.
- like when Newscorp bought Myspace - or Yahoo bought Flickr - or AOL bought Time Warner There is nothing Facebook can do with VR that matches their goals and strengths even a tiny little bit. I don't care how magically delicious Oculus is; it's squarely in the uncanny valley that makes it cool for gaming and deeply unsettling for everything else. Linden Labs buying Oculus? Sure. What better way to enjoy your yiff. Facebook? Neither Mafia Wars nor Farmville need VR, and boy howdy, Upworthy articles are not going to be improved by head tracking.
I couldn't disagree more. Zuckerberg's logic behind the acquisition is that he believes VR is the next major computing platform after mobile. Facebook was late to the mobile game and have been desperately trying to catch up. Owning and working with the Oculus team is exactly what Facebook should be doing to stay on the forefront of what many people perceive as the inevitable next phase in computing.There is nothing Facebook can do with VR that matches their goals and strengths even a tiny little bit.
VR has been the next great thing since the Atari 2600. If it was that compelling, solutions would have been found. Wanna see what that looks like? Here's what the cell phone industry did to batteries: VR ain't tough. Two screens headphones motion tracking = VR. Everything else is optimization. Nonetheless, the practical need for VR has simply not appeared in the past 30 years despite Virtuosity, Lawnmower Man and every subscriber of Popular Science demanding it be so. Oculus is a gaming platform, and it might rawk at that. But it's a COD4 platform, not a Smash Bros. platform. Not a Wii Sports platform. Not a casual gaming platform, which remains the lion's share of gaming: On this we can agree. Grasping at straws, however, does not a strategy make. Know why people use Google? It's the best search engine out there. Know why people use Facebook? Because all their friends forced them to. Know why people use Paypal? Because it provided the best solution to an obvious problem. Know why people use Facebook? Because it's better than Myspace. Yet Google figured out ten years ago that search was a mature market so they started spending their money on autonomous cars and alternate energy sources and shit. Elon Musk took his money from Paypal and rolled it up into electric cars and space launch platforms. If Mark Zuckerberg had invented Paypal, they'd be figuring out ways to better monetize your Paypal experience without recognizing that it does all it needs. Facebook needs VR the way UAV pilots need Facebook. Figuring out a way to turn Facebook into a desirable location instead of an obligation is exactly what Facebook should be doing. It's become an onerous chore for nearly everyone; "onerous chore" + "VR goggles" does not an enriching experience make.Zuckerberg's logic behind the acquisition is that he believes VR is the next major computing platform after mobile.
Facebook was late to the mobile game and have been desperately trying to catch up.
Owning and working with the Oculus team is exactly what Facebook should be doing to stay on the forefront of what many people perceive as the inevitable next phase in computing.
Creating a purely functional VR experience may not be tough, but a user-friendly and cost-effective experience hasn't been feasible until very recently. Grasping at straws isn't a good strategy. Facebook's desperate attempts to catch up in mobile are a resulted of their short-sightedness. They didn't anticipate the rise in smartphones and the changing consumer landscape. The idea behind this acquisition is to not only avoid missing the boat again, but actually drive the boat into the future. I feel like you are mistaking where Facebook currently is with where it wants to be. Facebook, at its core, wants to be a social hub where people connect and come together. I think your vision of VR as a gaming-only platform is extremely short-sighted. There are dozens of other applications that I can easily see completely shifting the way we interact and operate online. Why Skype for a business meeting when you can sit in a virtual board room? Why go all the way to a doctor's office if you can communicate face-to-face and have all of your vitals tracked through a bracelet? This is something we agree on, but I I think it is crazy to assume that because they bought Oculus, they are abandoning their main (and most profitable) value prop.VR ain't tough. Two screens headphones motion tracking = VR. Everything else is optimization.
Grasping at straws, however, does not a strategy make.
Know why people use Facebook? Because all their friends forced them to.
Figuring out a way to turn Facebook into a desirable location instead of an obligation is exactly what Facebook should be doing.
Disclosure - I was a dues-paying member of the Society for Information Display for five years. So when I tell you that you're talking about increments rather than revolutions, know that I am telling you from a position of experience. There's nothing new or unusual about Oculus. It's a bunch of off-the-shelf components assembled to mimic the early VR implementations without the complexity or expense. With an Oculus, you're about where VPL was in 1990. I know what the idea is. We all do. The argument is that the idea is misguided, much like Newcorp buying Myspace. Browse down this list. In fact, I made the argument that this is all Facebook wants to be, and that it shall perish because of it. Go back and read again. I'll elaborate: Facebook is a gatekeeper. The only way Facebook makes revenue is by standing between you and your content and monetizing the stream. This is why everyone hates Facebook - in order for them to make money, they need to increase their stranglehold on the pipeline between "you" and "what you want" so they can express its essential oils. Facebook's profit model is to keep you hooked so they go through your pockets while you get your fix. This is why Facebook is in trouble: as soon as somebody provides that fix without going through your pockets, Facebook will have no customers. They know this. Every acquisition of the past five years has been about acknowledging this. You wanna know why Facebook bought Oculus? Google came out with Glass so that their search and their network would never ever ever leave you. Google and Facebook are not friends. Facebook needs something on your face that will never ever leave you. So they went to the store and bought something. That's about as deep as the thinking went, I reckon. They're panic shopping. Companies do it all the time when they're out of ideas in a stable market. That's not my vision of VR, that's the reality of VR. The only people who have done anything with VR in the past 20 years have been gamers, and that's because there simply isn't any utility in it for anyone else. Try this: You've got a magic pair of VR goggles in front of you. It's connected to everything you might possibly want. It weighs less than a kleenex, draws less power than a fart, has angstrom-grade resolution, refreshes at 1 GHz and can see in more colors than a mantis shrimp. What do you do with it? What part of your daily life needs that in it? What aspects of supercallifragilistic VR are going to enrich your life? Make me a list. Because when you're in front of a computer you accept, but don't like, the fact that nobody is looking you in the eye. It's inhuman and weird and we put up with it but it's not natural. I designed conference rooms around September 11. Everyone was convinced it was the wave of the future, because travel was going to suck. Well, traveling does suck, and people are traveling more for business than they were before September 11. You're going to replace that with avatars in a virtual space? Know how many business meetings are conducted in Second Life? Because the rig necessary to check your tonsils over VR is not something I wish to contemplate. I didn't say they were abandoning it, I said they were grasping at straws. You as much as agreed. My argument is that there is no aspect of Virtual Reality that lends itself to "social." Your argument so far seems to lean towards well-wishing and poorly-considered ideas. There are facts here. They can be found easily. I have them. I am presenting them to you for your edification and amusement. You are welcome to disagree - but do not think that your mere disagreement is a compelling counterargument.Creating a purely functional VR experience may not be tough, but a user-friendly and cost-effective experience hasn't been feasible until very recently.
Facebook's desperate attempts to catch up in mobile are a resulted of their short-sightedness. They didn't anticipate the rise in smartphones and the changing consumer landscape. The idea behind this acquisition is to not only avoid missing the boat again, but actually drive the boat into the future.
I feel like you are mistaking where Facebook currently is with where it wants to be. Facebook, at its core, wants to be a social hub where people connect and come together.
I think your vision of VR as a gaming-only platform is extremely short-sighted.
Why Skype for a business meeting when you can sit in a virtual board room?
Why go all the way to a doctor's office if you can communicate face-to-face and have all of your vitals tracked through a bracelet?
I think it is crazy to assume that because they bought Oculus, they are abandoning their main (and most profitable) value prop.
As Notch stated, Facebook is good at one thing: building user number. At the moment, they have hard time to get new users -it's becoming your parent-app -; they'd bough anything barely related to teens. Except Oculus is not for teens. It's for upper class white young adults. I doubt anything good come out of that deal. It look so much like a dumb strategical decision, it hurt. Or it would hurt, if I though Facebook could do any sort of good to people, it doesn't.