Re:Tech layoffs more than double in Bay Area
by icebraining on Friday May 13, 2016 @06:50AM
(#11689626)
The problem is that those are so broad that they are useless at actually predicting what will be successful. People do like to communicate, but the 3D virtual chatrooms that were hyped in the late 90s/early 2000s still failed.
Yet, how many billions have MMOs made? The hype was right (well, hype often prevents good discussions), the implementation was wrong.
Re:Tech layoffs more than double in Bay Area
by saalweachter on Friday May 13, 2016 @09:41AM
(#11690337)
Forgive me if I've been using WoW wrong all these years, but do people interact with each other using the 3d first-person components?
When used as a communications platform, it's a text/voice communication system with an unrelated 3d game you can play to keep from getting bored.
More in the way that we assumed that "people like to communicate", so we built something that looked like the real world. But what people really want to do is share experiences and talk about that, which is why everything from sports to bars exist. People probably don't "communicate" as such in WoW (while I'm sure it happens), but they don't in the real world either.
Re:Tech layoffs more than double in Bay Area
by icebraining on Friday May 13, 2016 @11:21AM
(#11690880)
MMOs already existed, the hype was about 3D chatrooms and such. In any case, as much a success as they are, WoW at its peak still had less than half the users of Orkut, let alone Whatsapp or Facebook. It's relatively niche compared to the expectations.
Habbo, even though it has an enormous churn rate since it mostly attract teens, is still one of the most successful communities out there. It just that now these things are commonplace so it's not very exciting anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_virtual_communities_wi...
Re:Tech layoffs more than double in Bay Area
by icebraining on Friday May 13, 2016 @01:48PM
(#11691942)
According to its wiki page, Habbo has ~5 million monthly uniques. HN has 3. Reddit has 227.
Habbo has many registrations because of the churn rate you mentioned and that it's been around for 16 years, but it's not that big. And it certainly doesn't make billions.
Re:Tech layoffs more than double in Bay Area
by dredmorbius on Friday May 13, 2016 @09:32AM
(#11690294)
Cheaper, simpler, sufficient technologies typically win over complex ones. Email over complex 3D chat. Async over sync. SMS over voive. Image sharing. FB over blogs. Mobile over fixed. Complexity (in the eyes of the user) is virtually _always_ a loser.
And discretely monetizeable chunks -- ads, music sales, monthly services, frequent sales. The dream of a ubiquitous, always on, universally accessible information stream of the 1950s - 1980s seems not to be compatible with business necessities.
I'll note that all three Internet booms have fundamentally revolved around communications and advertising. Web, search, social, mobile.
People like to engage with friends and family, and businesses want to sell. Seems fairly powerful. Ever cheaper and more capable kit has gotten ever more portable.
Don't underestimate people's desire to connect. Or advertisers' to pitch. Though each may also have saturation or backlash points.
Simple and atomic seems also to have beaten complex and integrated.