Hacker News Comments on
How Snapchat's filters work
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this video.To me, it's a thought experiment about where SnapChat will be a few years in the future.Consider that they are pretty indisputably the leaders in terms of shipping real, actual working AR on mobile -> https://youtu.be/Pc2aJxnmzh0
So "how do you value" the number one AR company on the planet having shipped their first hardware device that:
- Has sidestepped all the "glasshole" baggage of Google Glass
- Genuinely nice looking non "borg" styling
- Actually works as intended
- Masterfully executed on a unique and successful marketing rollout. I completely agree on your point that it's a "pair of glasses that stream video from a camera", the important thing is that they've built a whole distribution and demand system where that is actually something people want in large numbers.
So, compared to MagicLeap, HoloLens, etc. SnapChat is working from a "worse is better" standpoint where their v1 is horrible on a feature vs feature basis against the Hololens (and presumably whatever MagicLeap is going to ship).
But, I feel pretty confident in thinking that they're selling many more units of their Spectacles (at $129) than Hololens (at $3,000) and they're learning at a much faster rate.
The question is: What will Spectacles v2-v5 look like? At what point do they not need a mobile phone? At what point can they make phone calls? At what point do they get gestural support (another area where Snapchat feels like a leader on mobile).
It's hard to look at an early click-wheel, monochrome screen iPod and see a mobile phone ecosystem worth trillions of dollars and I think it's far from certain that Spectacles are the equivalent, but I think there is a real chance that is the case.
⬐ idiot_stick>So "how do you value"...The same way you value anything. AR might be "new", but "new" things aren't new; they come out all the time, forever.
>It's hard to look at an early click-wheel, monochrome screen iPod and see a mobile phone ecosystem worth trillions of dollars
Which is why it would be incredibly naive to, in any way, predict Snapchat to have that sort of success, because it is so incredibly rare. It's like playing the lottery: yes there's a winner, but the odds of any individual company becoming "best ever" are incredibly slim. I have the same sentiment toward TSLA. I invest accordingly.
I think we are saying the same thing, I just lean cynical.