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Comment by officemonkey | Hacker News Reader

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 the hopes of leveraging new markets out of it.

Maybe they want to make the Gameboy of wearable gaming? They have had success in working with gaming companies (Zynga and King might have peaked, but FB still made money.) And they certainly have a enough power to make things happen.

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I pretty sure that they want to create something like a successful second life - i.e. a VR social network, where users have their own virtual property that they can customize and virtual spaces where they can meet. Basically something like the metaverse in Snowcrash.

And I can completely see the high ups in Occulus thinking that this is a brilliant match of visions.

Okay, any reason that would succeed where VRML failed? I just don't see it.

Because there's a big difference between laughable polygon-hell at 0fps and simulated presence.

Anyway, their principle interest is probably AR anyway. Everyone else is tumbling into that space.

No wireless, less space than a Nomad. Lame.

This was the slashdot editor's byline when Apple released the iPod. Just because a technology exists at one point and failed, doesn't mean that sort of technology can never work. Apple released the Newton ages ago, and we didn't switch to touch screen mobile devices till the iPhone.

Speak for yourself. Many many people were using touch screens on Palm devices throughout the late 90s and early 2000s.

Yes, lots of people were. But it wasn't mainstream.

I'm pretty sure you weren't working in business in the United States in the late 90s. The Palm devices were the fancy gadgets to have.

The were vastly more mainstream than the Newton ever was. They lost traction when the Blackberry phone emerged in the early 2000s, but if they had been able to get in the phone game faster, Palm could have beaten Apple to the smartphone.

Tons of reasons.

1. Headset navigation. You move your head and your view changes.

2. Rendering speed.

3. Social network with real audio incorporated into the game? Say goodbye to the chat line.

> Basically something like the metaverse in Snowcrash

More like the Oasis from Ready Player One, but owned by the Sixers from the start.

This is what I was thinking, too. Facebook buying Oculus is the exact sort of disaster that Parzival spent the entire book trying to prevent against.

In fairness to Mark Zuckerberg, RP1 was wildly idealistic in a way I can only describe as Stallmanesque. Beautiful, but wildly idealistic.

Let me take your imagination to a (short) trip: You can build a pretty decent psychological profile from a 30-50h game-play(even less if you design your game with this type of user-data in mind); this alone has HUGE implications(and possible use-cases) I won't go into.. If you combine the data from ALL VR EXPERIENCES through facebooks rift(and let me stress this again - we're talking about most of today's entertainment industry(+education), data the media has been dreaming of for years).. Even if eye-tracking won't be implemented, your VR interactions become a very neat addition to all the data - facebook alone - is gathering already - marketable like nothing before. As someone already mentioned here, being the first on the market means(among other things) that I as a potential VR customer won't really have options to choose from - my options are FB's rift, Sony's PS4+VR combo or just to wait for another ~5 years till enough VR parts are lying around so the smaller companies can have a go(although one may still not be able to watch the 360 F1 driver camera "facebook experience" feed from a "asus vr" kit). I'm fully aware that if most of my family/friends/colleagues/whatnot are on fb, it doesn't really matter if I'm using fb or not - data-wise(don't worry - till you are demonstrating in front of the "right" embassy, all is OK .. for now) - but this is a whole new attack vector for privacy.. and propaganda. If media are the only unregulated weapon of mass destruction on the planet, what is VR in hands of facebook then?

Let me take you on a short reality check: if this is so effective, then why wasn't Facebook buying game companies, Second Life clones, etc?

Why should they? Is FB a movie studio, or a game or hw development company? This was an opportunity to hijack a platform in its infancy and fb took it - so, in short - they just bought a whole new platform here(you seem to underestimate the significance, extent and potential of this technology). That is a whole different story. If the HW is a hit(and I bet it will be) - we're talking about a door to the (updated) world of entertainment; they can make a LOT of money by just being the (creepy, spying) doorman.

> I think it's because nobody understands what FB is going to do with it.

I've been thinking about this Facebook acquisition for a little while, and in my mind, the only play that makes sense for Facebook is to become the login gateway to Oculus games. For many Windows games, there's Windows Live...a social-ish, login service that you literally have to register and sign in with in order to play the game. You cannot opt out. If Facebook became this... "Sign in with Facebook"... for all commercial Oculus games, they would have a guaranteed mindshare on the future younger generations of gamers. And becoming just the gatekeepers would more or less let them be hands-off with the actual Oculus direction as a company, which is in line with what's been said so far.

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 think FB is dumb, but I do fear that they are highly amoral with respect to personal privacy... And a VR screen glued to your face is getting pretty damn personal. I feel uneasy about a guy who calls his users "dumb fucks" for trusting him to be in charge of that.

> 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 information they have on people, they aren't even that good at placing relevant ads or getting clicks. The main innovations FB is credited with is finding more and more ways to mine and exploit user's data.

More importantly, the things that Facebook is good at doing have little to nothing to do with building a persistent on-line world (and decades of experience have shown that in general these are not things that the bulk of people want to inhabit as a replacement for the real world. Walking around a virtual art gallery sucks in comparison to just flipping through a bunch of photos).

Facebook and innovation almost never appear positively in the same sentence.

>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.

... or buying companies that know how to innovate.

And then what?

It's got to be connected to the core competencies of the company, otherwise it's just a conglomerate and FB has shown zero signs that this what they intend to do. All of the language of the acquisition is that they will be using this tech to reinforce what they already do.

I'm excited to announce that we've agreed to acquire Oculus VR, the leader in virtual reality technology.

Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. For the past few years, this has mostly meant building mobile apps that help you share with the people you care about. We have a lot more to do on mobile, but at this point we feel we're in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences.

And that's why people hate this acquisition, because OVR could have been so much more than just yet another vehicle for FB to push social. FB social could have been just one aspect of what OVR could have enabled, now it's the only thing.

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.

I'm not challenging FB to innovate. It's not in their DNA. FB is FB. It is what it is.

And that's why this acquisition is bad. There are no paths that FB will take with this tech that doesn't drive it right down the non-innovative path they're already on and committed to.

That's a little too hand-wavy for my taste. Like you used your jedi knight intellectual superiority to declare that FB doesn't get it and never will and you do and can clearly point it out.

Truth is, I don't know exactly what FB will do with this tech. But it seems silly to think it will only be within some narrow concept of their existing social network roadmap. I would bet on Facebook letting them stay separate and do their own thing, combining sales and marketing channels where opportunities exist. But only time will tell.

They are actually having growth problems, particularly with the younger demographic.

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.

Equal outrage is because lots of people want absolutely nothing to do with Facebook.

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.

I am really hoping that your right, that it is them becoming a tech conglomerate rather than trying to integrate with their other products. But what worries me still, is I don't see a future where Facebook will keep the Oculus as a open system. If it's successful there is no doubt they will try to own the software/services with it - they won't just sell the hardware, then let PC developers (and open marketplaces, like Steam) get all the profit

I think that what you mention - a tech conglomerate - is what Facebook wants to become. Of course, it's going to be hard for them to do that, at least for some years, because people are going to hear "Facebook" and all they are going to think about is the social networking portion of their business.

Of course, Google was the same way at one time back when they were known only as a search engine.

What are they want to do with it?

.hack//Sign, Sword Art Online and Ready Player One

That's what they want to do.

Right on, Facebook's goal is to connect the world. That's why they've acquired companies that range from cloud hosting (Parse) to Internet-delivering drones (Ascenta/Internet.org).

I thought their goal was to make money, go figure.

Successful companies do not think like you.

They focus on making the very best products/services they can and have the money be a secondary consideration.

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