Is Facebook buying Oculus Rift the death knell?

A friend of mine asked me what I thought of the Facebook $2 billion dollar buyout of Oculus Rift. This is what I wrote.

I thought Facebook was a 4-6 billion dollar company. Right before they went public, they gave a billion to Instagram. Then another 16+ billion to WhatsApp. Now two billion to Oculus. If you had $50, and you gave $40 away, you would be in a pretty weak position. Literally, based on raw numbers, it seems like Oculus could turn around and buy Facebook right now. It doesn’t make ANY sense at all.

  1. This MUST be shaking the confidence in Facebook stockholders. Zuck is still spending money however he sees fit, he has no vague idea how to monetize Facebook effectively and shareholders are only going to see their company having less and less value.
  2. Kickstarter backers should be furious. Even though Kickstarter doesn’t make you part owner of a company, I think that may be about to change. Sites like Kiva.org for Micro lending are going to take the place of sites like Kickstarter – where you either give someone a loan that will be paid back, or you become a shareholder in the company or product. It is insulting to give you money to get you this far, and then you don’t just go out and find a new investor, you let someone else BUY OUT your company. Why did I bother giving you money in the first place?
  3. Facebook COULD “leave it alone” in the beginning. Much like Microsoft has let Skype be their own thing for several years, and only recently started implementing it as their primary messenger platform. Skype still has most of its autonomy, now it just integrates with Microsoft’s platform better than before. Facebook could potentially allow Oculus to continue what they are doing, and then tackle his own ideas later.
  4. I, for one, haven’t been all that excited about Oculus Rift. Don’t care for it. It’s still this large clunky thing you have to strap to your head. It’s cool, but not cool ENOUGH, yet. So I’m not broken hearted over this deal. But given the growing dislike of Facebook among people in the tech community (reluctantly still members because “you have to be”), I can see many more developers than Mojang walking away. Perhaps flocking to Razer’s unofficially-unannounced VR platform.

You're still using Twitter wrong

So many people I talk to “don’t get” Twitter. Even worse, are companies with Twitter accounts who have fewer followers than someone like me, who just Tweets casually. Let me offer you some advice on the best ways to use Twitter.

Twitter is not a bullhorn. Get out of the web 1.0 mentality. You can’t just post status updates and expect people to find you.

Twitter is a conversation. Be a part of it. Engage and participate in trending topics, follow others and engage them in daily discussions.

Follow back. Follow those who follow you. Use the search feature to find others talking about your topics of interest and follow them. Watch the conversations occurring with the people you already follow, and follow the people they interact with.

Twitter can help you find others. Some of the best moments are when you complain about a product, and their support team finds you and offers to help. It’s a sneak attack, it defuses someone who may not have otherwise contacted you, and shows them that you really do want to help. Use that search feature to see if others are talking about you, your products, brands, or even just your topic of interest. The key to this is timeliness. Don’t respond a week later. Twitter is too real time for you to be “just getting around” to that person’s tweet.

Twitter can spread positive perception quickly. Use the “retweet” feature to your advantage. If somebody says something positive about you, retweet them. It shows that person that you are actively listening (reading), and shows others that you recognize your followers.

Twitter is news. When I first signed up for Twitter, I didn’t ever look back to RSS feeds. Not only is Twitter the place to go for breaking news events before any cable news networks, but it’s the place to go for trending topics, and even following some of the largest corporations as they continue to use Twitter as a bullhorn to spread their news. Only mega companies can get away with that behavior, but you will notice that even those with millions of followers will find a way to engage their fellow Twitter users.

Hold me to my own standards, follow @NuAngel on Twitter!

Apple products showing increased attacks from hackers

On Friday, Feb 21st, 2014, Apple issued an update for iOS. Apple’s website noted a serious flaw in SSL. On Tuesday the 25th, Apple finally released an update for Mac OSX (10.9.2) to address the flaw. I do not know if other, pre 10.9 Mavericks versions of Mac OSX are getting this update, or if iOS 6 users are receiving patches.

Considering Microsoft has supported Windows XP for over a decade and is only soon about to pull the plug, I find it shocking that Apple would only push these patches on their very latest operating systems, considering the severity of the flaw. Continue reading “Apple products showing increased attacks from hackers”

100,000 and growing

In late January 2012 I re-launched this website. I had this site (NuAngel.net) from 1999 to 2005. I then started another site (WinBreak) from 2006-2011, then repurchased the first domain and combined the two sites in 2012. At that time, I reset all statistics and started counting from scratch.

Fall 1999 – August 2003 I had about 50,000 views. Then I stopped tracking. I started tracking stats again in 2007. 2008 alone saw almost 89,000 views on the site. I have since adjusted the way I keep stats, using a few combined methods. In January of 2012, when I merged WinBreak into NuAngel.net, I reset the counters. Continue reading “100,000 and growing”