Matterport Reading: "In Search of Stupidity"3069
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 WGAN ForumFounder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
 Hi All, A Forum Member sent me this message and gave me permission to publish anonymously. How do you suggest that I reply? [I added links to the references to give the post context.] Dan -- Hi Dan, Have you read “In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 Years of High-Tech Marketing Disaster”? This book shows and list tens of companies failures and explain why they happen. Usually the reasons behind such failures are consistent. I am writing to you due to Matterport – a company that I love with a wonderful vision and a appealing product – that seems to be following the same path of many others in the past. Seems – and I hope I am wrong – that Matterport is changing from a market driven company (the one that are driven by the needs and desires of its costumers basis, into a sales driven company – where everything that matters is sales and regard the rest as secondary.) Since the end of August [2016], I’ve been a bit disappointed with the company behavior. What happened with the “3rd party developers” issues, in fact the way they have deal with it and the way they have interpreted the TOS made me ask myself some questions. But I gave Matterport the benefit of doubt. Now, after the events of last week [27 October 2016], I am really disappointed not only with the changes they have made on the Workshop, but also with the marketing campaign targeting sales to the Realtors channels. Of course Matterport is free to choose their way and I am not questioning their decisions. But - my views as a client - is that the bond of trust between me and [Matterport] is some how affected? So I start asking myself simple questions: 1. What's missing here? 2. Can I rely on Matterport as a supplier? 3. Will Matterport support my business? Unhappily – for the moment – I feel trap. I made a big investment. $10,000 is a lot of money – and I can not find a serious alternative. More, the reaction I got from my costumers with the new "interface" are not the best ones. While reading the We Get Around Forum – by the way, thank you for the very nice job you’ve been doing managing this Forum and supporting the members – I notice that disappointed is the common feeling between many MSP and community members. Really hope all this situation will be efficiently managed by Matterport senior managers. If not, I am confident that sooner or latter other alternatives will be available. So – and this is the bottom line question - I ask myself if the We Get Around Community would support and help develop any “new” solution that will match with the MSP community desires Developed by a third party company? I would love to hear your comments on it... Best regards, [redacted] Note: In Search of Stupidity" was written by Merrill R.Chapman and it's available on Amazon. A summary of the book content can be found here. |
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JC3DCX private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Have a look at this, clickable text |
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VRPM private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by JC3DCX The technology is great with NavVis but get serious, would you really be taking that trolley and rolling it around residential properties? Stairs, furniture...hallways, need I go on? |
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VRPM private msg quote post Address this user | |
| In response to the original post: MP users understandably get frustrated as they are investing a lot of money in the tech and for some, they are not getting the ROI they thought they would get. MP are a hardware & services company, they are not selling a franchise business where MP service providers get their own areas so inevitably the more hardware they sell, the more competition there will be and as such, there will be a race to the bottom. | ||
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Jamie private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Yeah on the surface it looks ok. Can't say I like the trail of big circles though, that looks quite cheesy. Not exploring everything on there (only on my phone). Did they have 3D mesh? A dollhouse? Or is it just numerous panoramic shots. |
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UserName private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I still don't know if Matterport camera sales will slowly dwindle. I once read where Matterport envisions people using mobile devices to scan their own homes. In this old CNET video, we also hear the CEO say, "Sometime in the next 2-5 years we expect to see 3D capture devices in tablets so that everyone with their iPad 5 .. could .. do a quick 3D scan and share it with the world" I may have read where Matterport may hope to process point clouds that those mobile devices create. Additionally, I think they said their Matterport camera would help professionals take higher quality scans. I would think, however, that future mobile cameras don't have the same capabilities as today's Matterport camera. One theory about of all this might be that Matterport may want to sell as many cameras as they can now if they see mobile devices as powerful as the camera saturate the market in the future. Maybe in that future they'd focus more on processing point clouds and creating models for people. That might work if no other competitors jump into the create-a-model-from-a-point cloud market. The following Property Pal article has one of the more detailed discussions I've seen about Google Tango helping people use mobile devices to scan their homes. I don't think their recent Lenova phablet's camera can compete with Matterport's, but who knows what the future holds. The article seems to imply that Google might be Matterport's competitor (see last paragraph) == == Excerpts from that article 3d Visualisation company Matterport (www.matterport.com) provides immersive 3D virtual tours (that are available now on PropertyPal) using their bespoke camera solution. Google’s Project Tango would ultimately put the power of one of those cameras into a device at least ten times as small, and facilitate smaller software vendors to compete with the quality of the walkthroughs that Matterport currently provide. Matterport already has a mobile app in the works for this technology and are partnering with Google on the development of the technology. For the creation of floor plans as well, Google have already shown interest in some of the leading mobile software vendors out there that could work alongside Tango phones. Sensopia, which creates MagicPlan (an iPhone app for creating floor plans) have also realised its potential, and are integrating Tango into the app, which makes measuring floor dimensions extremely easy. This is just the tip of the iceberg. If Google manages to get the project into the hands of the everyday Estate Agent, we will definitely see indoor ‘Street View’ experiences being integrated into the homes we view online. ========== |
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JC3DCX private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I love Matterport and want to see them grow. They should open up to 3rd party developers and will be even better. Navvis have the huge trolley, but they give you access to all the raw data captured as well as the procesed data and you can even zoom in on the panos. They are more focused on huge areas like malls and airports etc, Would be nice if some of that functionality could be developed by matterport, |
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 TosoliniProductions Bellevue, Washington |
Tosolini private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I think @username may be right. The clock is ticking for MP to maximize their profits, given: 1) mobile devices will be equipped soon with depth sensors. Although not direct competitors right away, the writing is on the wall that there is going to be a democratization of 3D scanning. Which brings me to point 2 2) if you can scan an object in 3D with a $500 phone, it's hard to justify the cost of a bulky $4.5K scanner anymore, despite it's not a fair apple to apple comparison. 3) MP has software that will work on all these platforms, so it's a win-win for them anyway 4) While this 3D revolution is unfolding, why not capitalizing on their dominant market position and sell as many cameras as possible? This flooding doesn't help MSPs necessarily, but MP business is to secure as many pros as possible into their ecosystem, so when mobile scanning will be ready, hopefully the cameras will be amortized, the transition to mobile will be less painful, and nobody will leave their subscriptions. As per the current cameras, we better make sure we get a good return on the investment sooner rather later. I also believe that this transition will not happen overnight. I visited the last two Consumer Electronic Show in Vegas and I saw Intel RealSense hardware two years in the raw on display, and yet, not much traction with OEMs. The market doesn't seem to be that hungry for 3D scanners as much as tech company would like us to be. |
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UserName private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Here are some of the companies that book discusses .. == WordStar was once one of the finest word processing programs in the world. But somehow the company ended up owning two competing mediocre products. Lotus was the leader in spreadsheets but ignored the rise of Windows and allowed themselves to be knocked out of first place by Excel. === Maybe there's a reason I haven't seen another company make a 3D dollhouse model in all this time. I'm not sure what it is unless Matteport owns all the important "how to make a 3D model from a point cloud quickly and inexpensively" market. I haven't verified the following story, but I once read that Nuance, maker of the Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition program owns most of the major patents a competitor might need to compete with Nuance. To this day, no other company, not even Microsoft with it's Windows Speech Recognition, can offer a speech recognition product that unseats Nuance. Other 3D scanning companies may be able to convert point clouds into models, but at what cost and could they make a dollhouse similar to Matteport's quickly without infringing on Matterport patents? Note that Matterport made some changes, such as adding a TOS to a model. Also note that this was a change affecting "software." We don't know how they're splitting their time between hardware development and software development. Maybe they're gearing up to becoming primarily a software company one day if they themselves acknowledge that they won't always own the only 3D scanning camera. |
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