While I initially agree with you and can understand your view point based on your previous experience, I think there are two categories of tech:
-Business Value Add
-Hype / Marketing
I separate these out because we've already gone through a terrible economic downturn that is sputtering to produce jobs and yet we see an explosion of jobs in the tech sector. That's because of the value add software that is reducing the number of employees, paperwork or steps in a process a business needs in order to operate.
Those types of companies are going to be fine through another economic downturn because their clients have realized how much their saving by using the software. These value add tech businesses may see a slow down, but not a collapse.
The biggest example that is here to stay is E-Commerce. Look at how many companies / businesses are realizing how much easier / cheaper it is to go online than build a brick and mortar store with employees, rent, utilities, taxes, repairs, maintenance, etc.
Even some apps are here to stay. AirBNB, for example, is a personal value add when I'm traveling. I have no problem paying them a couple dollars to reduce my overall travel costs by 15-30%.
What will collapse almost overnight are the apps, websites, etc that are simply fluffy websites, marketing materials, or buggy unusable software.
My thought is stick with the people helping other people make or save money, and you'll be safe through the next one.
>I think there are two categories of tech: -Business Value Add -Hype / Marketing
It's harder to tell the difference than you think.
For an example, during the first dot-com, how about amazon? selling books online. Hurr hurr. what a great and revolutionary business plan. Hell, after the crash, for a while, I was selling books online, and writing software to automate warehouse operations. It's actually a really interesting space, if you ask me, but in 1997, well, to me it didn't look like a billion-dollar idea.
Turns out? it was one of those ideas (or implementations) that turned out to be a really good idea. It was not obvious that it was a good idea (or good implementation) at all, not until after the crash.
Or ebay. There was a sea of auction sites. A huge number of auction sites. It was not at all clear that ebay would continue on to be the marketplace of choice.
And for every amazon and ebay, there were a thousand imitators.
And what about Yahoo!? It sure looked like curated portals were the way to go. it looked like they would be the gateway to the internet. Nope.
AOL was in the same boat. It looked a lot like real value, but was, in fact, pyrite.
I think the biggest story is that the people who added the value that was most tangible? the telecoms who actually trenched in all the fiber? A huge number of those went bankrupt. And those are the companies, were I playing stocks at the time, I would have bought. Those companies seemed to be the 'real-estate' of the internet, as they owned the fiber in the ground. In a real sense, they owned they physical layer that the internet was built upon.
Could you expand upon the reason why you chose to use 3D over 2D floor plans? From a technological standpoint it's very cool, but I was wondering what value it adds for the business and customer satisfaction?
If I understand your product correctly, 3D may bog down your customer service channels because people will pay more attention to the accuracy of your model (when it may not matter) instead of the metrics you are trying to convey.
There are also some logistic issues that I'm wondering how you will overcome:
-If I'm a local technician, this will be a great tool to spot check the receiver locations. But I have no way to (accurately and easily) measure if it's 4 feet or 6 feet off the ground.
-If I'm a school admin, I need a quick graphic where the only change is the metrics I'm trying to analyze. Making me zoom/move around to see different classrooms / buildings on campus is time I probably don't have. Even pre-made locked 3D views distract me with extra information about the building when I'm really trying assess classroom attendance. And while showing the flow of students from classroom to classroom in 3D would be cool, it would again be much more useful as an analytical tool in 2D where the information being displayed is limited and focused on the task at hand.
3D is typically used to engage someone emotionally or show a highly detailed item. Emotionally, it allows us to connect to an event (such as the SailBoat Race) by filling our eyes with information that can only be gleaned at that time/space in reality. Analytically, it is a great tool to convey and compare important minute details, such as light coming into a room or organs wrapping around each other.
It's a great tool when used appropriately and I do see some value added by making an admin see/feel the cramped musky hallways of a building to explain emotionally why students go to class less often in certain buildings. But I equally wonder if you won't find yourself in uphill battle as people focus more on the problems with your model instead of the problems with their attendance?
On top of all that, what happens if:
-I have a Netbook/Chromebook with too little horsepower for 3D?
-I have to install flash just to use your product and can't (Mac)?
-My internet connection is slow, intermittent or a combo?
You have a point about using 3D in the attendance monitoring for universities. In facts this is why the viewer employed there is gonna be 2D and used only in case of emergencies ( privacy is a big concerns for education institutions and we do not want to show where people are exactly, but monitor their attendance and gather anonymous stats).
What we are trying to accomplish with the stack we are currently using is a generic multipurpose demo IP platform that anybody can extend with their own applications. In this case the 3rd dimension is something that might be very useful to show case.
For what concerns the rest of your (very valid) comments, Unity3D can export to WEBGL and other engines, not only flash. We will consider our options but right now for this initial beta release, flash sounds good enough.
I'm not totally sure if this is relevant to the original post, but I think Unity also offer a browser plugin which, I assume, can be used interchangeably with the Flash export.
Yeah ... Take a look at Drupal 8 and you'll start to see this creeping in. I overheard Dries saying he wants to see Java style comments and wants to be more like Java.
I separate these out because we've already gone through a terrible economic downturn that is sputtering to produce jobs and yet we see an explosion of jobs in the tech sector. That's because of the value add software that is reducing the number of employees, paperwork or steps in a process a business needs in order to operate.
Those types of companies are going to be fine through another economic downturn because their clients have realized how much their saving by using the software. These value add tech businesses may see a slow down, but not a collapse.
The biggest example that is here to stay is E-Commerce. Look at how many companies / businesses are realizing how much easier / cheaper it is to go online than build a brick and mortar store with employees, rent, utilities, taxes, repairs, maintenance, etc.
Even some apps are here to stay. AirBNB, for example, is a personal value add when I'm traveling. I have no problem paying them a couple dollars to reduce my overall travel costs by 15-30%.
What will collapse almost overnight are the apps, websites, etc that are simply fluffy websites, marketing materials, or buggy unusable software.
My thought is stick with the people helping other people make or save money, and you'll be safe through the next one.