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One of authors here. As a kid, some of my most meaningful relationships and experiences were forged through online gaming (UO anyone?). A big part of this wasn’

One of authors here. As a kid, some of my most meaningful relationships and experiences were forged through online gaming (UO anyone?). A big part of this wasn’t necessarily the game itself, but was instead the sense of place and community afforded through the shared environment. As an adult, many of my most meaningful relationships have come from my work environment. When working remotely or in a distributed setting, however, I find this not to be the case. Existing tools such as Slack and Zoom simply don’t cut it. Individual productivity may benefit, but the culture is fundamentally lacking. As a leader and someone who has founded and built a large company, I have experienced first-hand how critical it is to have a highly engaged team. This affects everything from communication to culture and company values. Moreover, there is a lack of innovation that spontaneous whiteboard sessions and more fluid communication styles afford. Spot is the culmination of a year of research and development to recreate a highly engaged workplace with smooth and natural interactions. (Not to mention, it is also a lot of fun!). Would appreciate some feedback from the HN community.

marcind 5y ago
I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the 3d virtual office. I find they often require a greater number of clicks to perform a task I'd otherwise complete "the old way". I'd be more likely to use an app that delivers "always on" virtual connections if they legitimately made my life easier. Maybe consider adding some desktop/keyboard shortcuts that are available when minimized/off? <a bit of a plug coming up> We've been working on solving similar problems but going about it differently. Rather than a shared virtual environment, we're looking for better ways to connect real, distributed environments. We created https://sharetheboard.com https://sharetheboard.com because we simply didn't want to give up the whiteboard sessions. Reading here though I wonder if some kind of mashup wouldn't be interesting? A real whiteboard session could easily be displayed on the wall of your virtual office, allowing for serendipitous participation... Let me know if you're interested and we can discuss.
technoplato 5y ago
I surprisingly love using these kinds of environments and this one looks neat. What’s going to be the pricing model moving forward. Surely voice and such can’t be free in perpetuity. Nice work!
- ghempton 5y ago
  Good question! Right now we are fortunate to have some AWS credits to subsidize some voice costs :P. At the moment our focus is on usage, but our goal is to have a freemium model based on the size of the space, premium assets, etc.
  - ilaksh 5y ago
    AWS will jack you, be careful. Those credits get used up, free/cheap quota used, services grind to a halt and somehow you owe $500 after a week. I mean.. you just have to pay attention. And maybe think about making a pricing page. Personally I love the idea, especially 3D and programmability.
  - fluential 5y ago
    If you want to be „close” to AWS but still save money, try spinning lightsail instances that act as media proxies, similarly with other more resource generous providers. You could shift majority of media traffic off AWS and keep the “signalling” just there.
christkv 5y ago
I'm definitively going to propose we try it to see if it makes interactions better for our case.
petersonh 5y ago
Love it :) Would try to get my team on board, but I work in gov where we can only use MS Teams. I feel like using this would add a lot of fun to the day.
GordonS 5y ago
I'd like to try this, but the "Try Now for Free!" button wants me to create an account - I don't want to create an account just to have a quick look. I'd much rather have a quick look, then maybe create an account later if I wanted to try it more meaningfully. If you're an HN regular, I guess you were expecting a comment like this - is there an open URL we can use just to get a feel for it?
- egypturnash 5y ago
  Account creation doesn't require clicking a link in the email, I just used 'buttmonkey' as the username and 'buttmonkey@mailinator.com' as the email. And now I am stuck in the tutorial because it wants me to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel or the track pad, and I am at my desk with my computer closed and plugged into my monitor and my Wacom tablet and it doesn't recognize using the touch ring set to 'scroll'. It's sure not doing a good job of suppressing Safari's right-click menus when I hit the stylus button I have set to right-click to rotate the view, either.
  - zucked 5y ago
    I think they shut down Mailinator emails (tried Mailismagic and mailinator and both times I was "unauthorized")
    - GordonS 5y ago
      Wow, that's some pretty disappointing behaviour if true. Since at leat one of the authors is here, would be good to get a comment from them on this?
    - bobsmooth 5y ago
      Mailinator still works. The homepage doesn't suggest emails anymore but there's a box at the top of the page for whatever fake email you want to check.
    - whather 5y ago
      Sorry this was a sendgrid issue that has now been fixed
boobsbr 5y ago
Yes, UO. Catskills shard.
- ghempton 5y ago
  Napa valley here.
  - codezero 5y ago
    Lake Superior
  - agrippanux 5y ago
    Great Lakes! I had a GM Tamer back in '97.
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  Sonoma!
codezero 5y ago
I was going to dismiss this as similar to a lot of other things I've seen, but hearing your POV helps a lot - as someone who has friends IRL that I met in UO, and a wife I met in EverQuest, your story really hits with me, thanks for this, I'm going to check it out. I guess my main curiosity is how we get people who don't believe virtual communication/living is the same as in-person or at least capable of being socially fulfilling. Does Spot do anything special to attract the people who go in with cynicism?
astlouis44 5y ago
Congrats on the launch. I have to ask though... how do you plan to differentiate? As I'm sure you are aware, there has been at least 25 (likely more) of these exact same web-based, 3D spaces platforms for remote work as an interactive alternative to Zoom. All launched since COVID, all offering pretty similar value propositions. Why should anyone use this over a competitor?
- Uehreka 5y ago
  I see this question asked a lot on HN, and certainly with good reason: Every founder should be constantly asking themselves this question. However, I think it’s important to also play Devil’s Advocate and note that some products succeed not because they differentiated themselves against competitors, but simply because a large number of people learned about them before learning about their (possibly better, possibly cheaper) competitors, and then network effects start to take over from there.
- crummy 5y ago
  I've tried a bunch of solutions like this and think the answer is that Spot.xyz is the richest (but still simple) experience. Here's my summary: * The world is easy to move around in and manipulate, which is rare for a 3d space (as opposed to Mozilla Hubs for example) * Video chat showing up on peoples heads is much nicer than in a separate section like Gather.town * Hear people per-room, rather than just volume attenuation is a better solution for larger meetings * The screen sharing on a wall is such a nice and intuitive way to glimpse content from afar but still be able to full screen it That said, my team is on Gather and we will stick, largely because we have team members on slow laptops and the 3d world of Spot makes the fans spin.
  - gfodor 5y ago
    Would love your thoughts on my attempt at this space, jel.app, if you have time! It’s 3D but is designed to run well on low end laptops. It incorporates UX patterns from Slack and Notion and has full world building (voxels) and friendly avatars with lip syncing based on voice. No webcam used, on purpose. It does presume some basic gaming literacy. (I started the Hubs team at Mozilla and Jel is a derivative work from Hubs)
tunnuz 5y ago
I spent my adolescence on Ultima Online and don’t regret a single day. I now recognize it was a problem.
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  I know it's probably just remembering things better than they were but UO was some kind of magic- it was one of the last times that mmos forced players with a wide variety of playstyles to interact with real consequences in the same world. Shortly thereafter things split into specialized PvP and PvE mmos and it was never the same.
frijole 5y ago
Curious of your thoughts on Topia, similar but geared for office work, community building, and commercial worlds. https://topia.io/ https://topia.io/
- dliebeskind 5y ago
  CEO of Topia here - hi! We're 100% focused on communities and human connection, not on office work or commercial tools :). But work employees can be a community as well and strengthening the bonds you have with your coworkers is a great use of Topia! Topia is all about creating real relationships built upon shared experiences and memories. We have tons of fun features to help world builders create unique, connective experiences.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Wow, this person asked for information, and instead they got a fluff piece. Was this an automated post made to any mention of Topia?
    - motoxpro 5y ago
      What did you want them to say? CEO explained what the company does.
- brianswichkow 5y ago
  Check out https://topia.io/ycombinator https://topia.io/ycombinator
rypskar 5y ago
I do some work with games in the browser, both 2D and 3D, and did try it out mostly because I was curious about the technical side. First, this looks like a cool idea and could be useful. But we are on Internet so going directly to the problems. In both Firefox and Chrome on windows 10 the fps was mostly around 30 fps when moving around, some times dropping down to 5 fps. Probably because of this I kept getting stuck in furniture. There was also something that did feel off when looking around using the mouse, not really sure what maybe it only was lag. On most demos on Babylon and Three, and on other games, I get solid 60 fps. I am sure the experience will be much better if you also manage to get close to 60 fps.

marcind 5y ago

I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the 3d virtual office. I find they often require a greater number of clicks to perform a task I'd otherwise complete "the old way". I'd be more likely to use an app that delivers "always on" virtual connections if they legitimately made my life easier. Maybe consider adding some desktop/keyboard shortcuts that are available when minimized/off? <a bit of a plug coming up> We've been working on solving similar problems but going about it differently. Rather than a shared virtual environment, we're looking for better ways to connect real, distributed environments. We created https://sharetheboard.com https://sharetheboard.com because we simply didn't want to give up the whiteboard sessions. Reading here though I wonder if some kind of mashup wouldn't be interesting? A real whiteboard session could easily be displayed on the wall of your virtual office, allowing for serendipitous participation... Let me know if you're interested and we can discuss.

technoplato 5y ago

I surprisingly love using these kinds of environments and this one looks neat. What’s going to be the pricing model moving forward. Surely voice and such can’t be free in perpetuity. Nice work!

ghempton 5y ago
Good question! Right now we are fortunate to have some AWS credits to subsidize some voice costs :P. At the moment our focus is on usage, but our goal is to have a freemium model based on the size of the space, premium assets, etc.
- ilaksh 5y ago
  AWS will jack you, be careful. Those credits get used up, free/cheap quota used, services grind to a halt and somehow you owe $500 after a week. I mean.. you just have to pay attention. And maybe think about making a pricing page. Personally I love the idea, especially 3D and programmability.
- fluential 5y ago
  If you want to be „close” to AWS but still save money, try spinning lightsail instances that act as media proxies, similarly with other more resource generous providers. You could shift majority of media traffic off AWS and keep the “signalling” just there.

christkv 5y ago

I'm definitively going to propose we try it to see if it makes interactions better for our case.

petersonh 5y ago

Love it :) Would try to get my team on board, but I work in gov where we can only use MS Teams. I feel like using this would add a lot of fun to the day.

GordonS 5y ago

I'd like to try this, but the "Try Now for Free!" button wants me to create an account - I don't want to create an account just to have a quick look. I'd much rather have a quick look, then maybe create an account later if I wanted to try it more meaningfully. If you're an HN regular, I guess you were expecting a comment like this - is there an open URL we can use just to get a feel for it?

egypturnash 5y ago
Account creation doesn't require clicking a link in the email, I just used 'buttmonkey' as the username and 'buttmonkey@mailinator.com' as the email. And now I am stuck in the tutorial because it wants me to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel or the track pad, and I am at my desk with my computer closed and plugged into my monitor and my Wacom tablet and it doesn't recognize using the touch ring set to 'scroll'. It's sure not doing a good job of suppressing Safari's right-click menus when I hit the stylus button I have set to right-click to rotate the view, either.
- zucked 5y ago
  I think they shut down Mailinator emails (tried Mailismagic and mailinator and both times I was "unauthorized")
  - GordonS 5y ago
    Wow, that's some pretty disappointing behaviour if true. Since at leat one of the authors is here, would be good to get a comment from them on this?
  - bobsmooth 5y ago
    Mailinator still works. The homepage doesn't suggest emails anymore but there's a box at the top of the page for whatever fake email you want to check.
  - whather 5y ago
    Sorry this was a sendgrid issue that has now been fixed

boobsbr 5y ago

Yes, UO. Catskills shard.

ghempton 5y ago
Napa valley here.
- codezero 5y ago
  Lake Superior
- agrippanux 5y ago
  Great Lakes! I had a GM Tamer back in '97.
idiotsecant 5y ago
Sonoma!

codezero 5y ago

I was going to dismiss this as similar to a lot of other things I've seen, but hearing your POV helps a lot - as someone who has friends IRL that I met in UO, and a wife I met in EverQuest, your story really hits with me, thanks for this, I'm going to check it out. I guess my main curiosity is how we get people who don't believe virtual communication/living is the same as in-person or at least capable of being socially fulfilling. Does Spot do anything special to attract the people who go in with cynicism?

astlouis44 5y ago

Congrats on the launch. I have to ask though... how do you plan to differentiate? As I'm sure you are aware, there has been at least 25 (likely more) of these exact same web-based, 3D spaces platforms for remote work as an interactive alternative to Zoom. All launched since COVID, all offering pretty similar value propositions. Why should anyone use this over a competitor?

Uehreka 5y ago
I see this question asked a lot on HN, and certainly with good reason: Every founder should be constantly asking themselves this question. However, I think it’s important to also play Devil’s Advocate and note that some products succeed not because they differentiated themselves against competitors, but simply because a large number of people learned about them before learning about their (possibly better, possibly cheaper) competitors, and then network effects start to take over from there.
crummy 5y ago
I've tried a bunch of solutions like this and think the answer is that Spot.xyz is the richest (but still simple) experience. Here's my summary: * The world is easy to move around in and manipulate, which is rare for a 3d space (as opposed to Mozilla Hubs for example) * Video chat showing up on peoples heads is much nicer than in a separate section like Gather.town * Hear people per-room, rather than just volume attenuation is a better solution for larger meetings * The screen sharing on a wall is such a nice and intuitive way to glimpse content from afar but still be able to full screen it That said, my team is on Gather and we will stick, largely because we have team members on slow laptops and the 3d world of Spot makes the fans spin.
- gfodor 5y ago
  Would love your thoughts on my attempt at this space, jel.app, if you have time! It’s 3D but is designed to run well on low end laptops. It incorporates UX patterns from Slack and Notion and has full world building (voxels) and friendly avatars with lip syncing based on voice. No webcam used, on purpose. It does presume some basic gaming literacy. (I started the Hubs team at Mozilla and Jel is a derivative work from Hubs)

tunnuz 5y ago

I spent my adolescence on Ultima Online and don’t regret a single day. I now recognize it was a problem.

idiotsecant 5y ago
I know it's probably just remembering things better than they were but UO was some kind of magic- it was one of the last times that mmos forced players with a wide variety of playstyles to interact with real consequences in the same world. Shortly thereafter things split into specialized PvP and PvE mmos and it was never the same.

frijole 5y ago

Curious of your thoughts on Topia, similar but geared for office work, community building, and commercial worlds. https://topia.io/ https://topia.io/

dliebeskind 5y ago
CEO of Topia here - hi! We're 100% focused on communities and human connection, not on office work or commercial tools :). But work employees can be a community as well and strengthening the bonds you have with your coworkers is a great use of Topia! Topia is all about creating real relationships built upon shared experiences and memories. We have tons of fun features to help world builders create unique, connective experiences.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Wow, this person asked for information, and instead they got a fluff piece. Was this an automated post made to any mention of Topia?
  - motoxpro 5y ago
    What did you want them to say? CEO explained what the company does.
brianswichkow 5y ago
Check out https://topia.io/ycombinator https://topia.io/ycombinator

rypskar 5y ago

I do some work with games in the browser, both 2D and 3D, and did try it out mostly because I was curious about the technical side. First, this looks like a cool idea and could be useful. But we are on Internet so going directly to the problems. In both Firefox and Chrome on windows 10 the fps was mostly around 30 fps when moving around, some times dropping down to 5 fps. Probably because of this I kept getting stuck in furniture. There was also something that did feel off when looking around using the mouse, not really sure what maybe it only was lag. On most demos on Babylon and Three, and on other games, I get solid 60 fps. I am sure the experience will be much better if you also manage to get close to 60 fps.