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I am quite baffled by all this. I heard of Famo.us, but didn't give it more than 1 thought. I thought it was just another framework, I would have never thought

I am quite baffled by all this. I heard of Famo.us, but didn't give it more than 1 thought. I thought it was just another framework, I would have never thought that they had employees, let alone that many and raising that much money. I watched the video in the article, and I can't believe that people are throwing money at someone with a pitch like that. I feel like everything about Famo.us is all the wrong things that were described in the Reconsider article that was posted the other day https://medium.com/@dhh/reconsider-41adf356857f https://medium.com/@dhh/reconsider-41adf356857f

wmil 11y ago
3D GUIs are a lot like graphical programming. Just a giant black hole that has been sucking up research and investment money for 30 years without much to show. You do get some neat demos, but not a lot else.
- Impossible 11y ago
  The game industry has been using 3D GUIs and graphical programming successfully for years. Graphical programming is also popular in some other fields (MaxMSP for audio visual, labview).
  - JonnieCache 11y ago
    Add TouchDesigner to that list, which is basically MaxMSP for demoscene-style visual effects. It gets used for fancy things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zMI-qbmIPk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zMI-qbmIPk
  - TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
    Which reinforces the point, 3D GUIs are a lot of fun but not very productive. In my workflow at my day job I want fewer GUI interactions and more production. AutoHotKey and 5 tonne overhead cranes help a lot, 3D GUIs not so much. I won't discount the possibility that there will be some future problem that will be solved by a 3D GUI, perhaps astrogation.
puppetmaster3 11y ago
"I can't believe that people are throwing money at someone with a pitch like that". +1
- puppetmaster3 11y ago
  I predicted they would not do good - easy to verify comment history.
  - puppetmaster3 11y ago
    Downvotes for a quote? Good job HN.
    - coderdude 11y ago
      Relax. Downvotes are the air we breathe. Besides, a quote alone doesn't merit upvoting. Someone else said it.
      - puppetmaster3 11y ago
        thx for perspective, helped.
gramakri 11y ago
I suspect the investment was made here because of the founder and not the idea/company. The founder's previous company (powerset) was sold to microsoft for 100m.
adevine 11y ago
I think that essentially their pitch was that they would become the development platform for building apps. If they had considerably grown the number of apps on their platform, and gotten lots of positive developer buzz, they would have easily gotten more funding, even if they weren't making any money yet. The problem, though, is that building a new platform is really, really, really hard, and they didn't succeed. One of the biggest problems that I see that people underestimate is that most (not all, but most) great native mobile app engineers _don't_ want to build cross-platform apps. They tend to be "platform partisans", either loving Apple or Android, but not usually both. They always want to become experts in the latest and greatest platform technology. Perhaps more importantly, Apple and Google aren't particularly interested in cross-platform technology either. If you want to be featured in the App or Play Stores, you've got to have a native app that uses the latest iOS or Android features. I see lots and lots of cross-platform mobile solutions on HN, but I rarely see people considering the incentives of both Apple and Google, and the mobile developers, when it comes to evaluating these solutions.
- trjordan 11y ago
  > Perhaps more importantly, Apple and Google aren't particularly interested in cross-platform technology either. Ah, the problem with generalizations about large companies. http://flutter.io/ http://flutter.io/, by Google.
  - adevine 11y ago
    The fact that flutter exists doesn't really change my view that I don't believe that Google is pushing it. Flutter to me seems much more of a "Hey, let's get some brilliant people at Google on a fun, hard project" than something Google sees as the future. I agree, though, that Google has somewhat more of an incentive to build stuff cross platform than Apple does. Google wants you to access their services from any device, while Apple makes almost all their money from the devices themselves.
    - tyre 11y ago
      Flutter is in line with Google's business objectives. The more people transition to mobile apps, the more mobile searches people will make (as opposed to in-app searches.) They don't care if you are on Android or on mobile web, so cannibalization here isn't an issue; both lead to Google searches.
jakejake 11y ago
When it was first announced there was huge hype here on HN. I myself signed up. We were all really hoping that somebody had finally solved the cross-platform development pain. I was excited to see what the platform was going to do because at my company we really do feel the pain of developing for multiple platforms. So the investment isn't a surprise to me considering a CEO with a previous exit success and all the hype. When they launched, though, it was just lackluster and had some major rendering bugs. It felt like the air got let out of the tires and everybody just moved on. So looking at it now, it's definitely difficult to see what all the hype was about.
- Eridrus 11y ago
  I missed the first round of hype; was it originally all about 3D? Because that part definitely seemed crazy.

wmil 11y ago

3D GUIs are a lot like graphical programming. Just a giant black hole that has been sucking up research and investment money for 30 years without much to show. You do get some neat demos, but not a lot else.

Impossible 11y ago
The game industry has been using 3D GUIs and graphical programming successfully for years. Graphical programming is also popular in some other fields (MaxMSP for audio visual, labview).
- JonnieCache 11y ago
  Add TouchDesigner to that list, which is basically MaxMSP for demoscene-style visual effects. It gets used for fancy things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zMI-qbmIPk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zMI-qbmIPk
- TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
  Which reinforces the point, 3D GUIs are a lot of fun but not very productive. In my workflow at my day job I want fewer GUI interactions and more production. AutoHotKey and 5 tonne overhead cranes help a lot, 3D GUIs not so much. I won't discount the possibility that there will be some future problem that will be solved by a 3D GUI, perhaps astrogation.

puppetmaster3 11y ago

"I can't believe that people are throwing money at someone with a pitch like that". +1

puppetmaster3 11y ago
I predicted they would not do good - easy to verify comment history.
- puppetmaster3 11y ago
  Downvotes for a quote? Good job HN.
  - coderdude 11y ago
    Relax. Downvotes are the air we breathe. Besides, a quote alone doesn't merit upvoting. Someone else said it.
    - puppetmaster3 11y ago
      thx for perspective, helped.

gramakri 11y ago

I suspect the investment was made here because of the founder and not the idea/company. The founder's previous company (powerset) was sold to microsoft for 100m.

adevine 11y ago

I think that essentially their pitch was that they would become the development platform for building apps. If they had considerably grown the number of apps on their platform, and gotten lots of positive developer buzz, they would have easily gotten more funding, even if they weren't making any money yet. The problem, though, is that building a new platform is really, really, really hard, and they didn't succeed. One of the biggest problems that I see that people underestimate is that most (not all, but most) great native mobile app engineers _don't_ want to build cross-platform apps. They tend to be "platform partisans", either loving Apple or Android, but not usually both. They always want to become experts in the latest and greatest platform technology. Perhaps more importantly, Apple and Google aren't particularly interested in cross-platform technology either. If you want to be featured in the App or Play Stores, you've got to have a native app that uses the latest iOS or Android features. I see lots and lots of cross-platform mobile solutions on HN, but I rarely see people considering the incentives of both Apple and Google, and the mobile developers, when it comes to evaluating these solutions.

trjordan 11y ago
> Perhaps more importantly, Apple and Google aren't particularly interested in cross-platform technology either. Ah, the problem with generalizations about large companies. http://flutter.io/ http://flutter.io/, by Google.
- adevine 11y ago
  The fact that flutter exists doesn't really change my view that I don't believe that Google is pushing it. Flutter to me seems much more of a "Hey, let's get some brilliant people at Google on a fun, hard project" than something Google sees as the future. I agree, though, that Google has somewhat more of an incentive to build stuff cross platform than Apple does. Google wants you to access their services from any device, while Apple makes almost all their money from the devices themselves.
  - tyre 11y ago
    Flutter is in line with Google's business objectives. The more people transition to mobile apps, the more mobile searches people will make (as opposed to in-app searches.) They don't care if you are on Android or on mobile web, so cannibalization here isn't an issue; both lead to Google searches.

jakejake 11y ago

When it was first announced there was huge hype here on HN. I myself signed up. We were all really hoping that somebody had finally solved the cross-platform development pain. I was excited to see what the platform was going to do because at my company we really do feel the pain of developing for multiple platforms. So the investment isn't a surprise to me considering a CEO with a previous exit success and all the hype. When they launched, though, it was just lackluster and had some major rendering bugs. It felt like the air got let out of the tires and everybody just moved on. So looking at it now, it's definitely difficult to see what all the hype was about.

Eridrus 11y ago
I missed the first round of hype; was it originally all about 3D? Because that part definitely seemed crazy.