
Famo.us pivots from JavaScript engine to micro-app CMS - dylanpyle
http://famous.co/
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AdrianRossouw
Background: Famo.us was trying to build an open source javascript animation
library meant to unlock native performance on mobile[1]. They took many
millions of funding to do so[2] .

It didn't quite end up working out that way. Also, there's a community-run
"fork": infamous[3]

[1] [http://famous.org/](http://famous.org/) [2]
[http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/13/famo-us-raises-25m-to-
doub...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/13/famo-us-raises-25m-to-double-down-
on-javascript-app-development-framework/) [3]
[http://infamous.io/](http://infamous.io/)

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pedalpete
I never understood their original business model, they were going to sell
classes and events (conferences) around an open-source project that would
compete with other open-source projects? Was that really what was worth 20+M
of funding.

Now, seeing this pivot, I am still scratching my head a bit. So they are
leveraging the work they did on famous to create a CMS which lets marketers
easily create apps. Ok, I'll by that as a potential pivot, leverage what
you've got in the high-performance library.

But I have a few issues with their new homepage and possibly business model.

1) you have to contact Sara from Famous to get her to sign you up. I'd think a
company like Famous with access to so many potential customers would have been
able to get a bunch of beta testers to try their product before setting up
their homepage.

2) I clicked the play button under 'simple' expecting to see a video
demonstrating the product, but it just led me to a bit of text describing a
'micro-app', I can't even touch an example micro-app they've created. Same
with 'beautiful' and 'elegant'. Nothing here. I may expect that of a company
trying to figure out their market, but the expectation is higher here. Maybe
it's just me.

~~~
sebak
They didn't really have a business model to begin with, they were one of those
"let's create a hype and see what happens" startups, led by a guy who thinks
of himself as another Steve Jobs. The problem is that their framework was
buggy and not really that high performing (the idea of adding matrix
transforms on every single dom element is actually not such a good idea at
all). If you really wanted a very animated GUI, native is still the only
option. Plus, the whole over-animated GUI trend is also starting to fade (do
we really need our apps to look like flash intros of the 90s?). Later I've
heard they were aiming for a flash-like IDE for their framework to generate
money, this might be somewhat in line with what they're trying now. On reddit
a developer who left famo.us only 6 weeks ago said he didn't know anything
about this project. So I think that they are running out of money quickly and
this is all made up very fast without yet having a real product or example
apps.

~~~
seivan
I remember how Apple mocked them when demoing Safari the previous WWDC, heh.

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minikomi
That's odd... The site seems to be created with webflow.

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canyonero
For a company that has raised so much funding for JS animations library and
mobile web app performance, you'd think they would be able to get their mobile
navigation working properly.

Is anyone else on iOS safari able use their nav?

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Gigablah
Some jarring mistakes in the copy:

"programatically"

"It's headquarters are at"

"branded to our clients exact needs"

