Can Oculus survive the Facebook effect?
The response was swift, and almost universally negative. Within minutes of Facebook's announcement that it was acquiring Oculus VR for $2 billion, the internet had begun to mobilize against the deal. From Twitter to Reddit to our own forums, the message from early commenters was clear: This was bad for Oculus, bad for virtual reality, bad for gaming -- just bad.Part of this was the normal reaction to any popular, independent startup being bought out by a big company. There's a natural -- sometimes justified -- suspicion that the acquirer will ruin everything that made the small company successful, and the onus is on the newly merged business to prove otherwise.
In Oculus' case, however, there was more than the typical anti-acquisition backlash. Facebook has become known as a company that is built around one thing: monetizing your social interactions. On Facebook, you're the product, with everything you do sold to advertisers, and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. As Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson said in a tweet announcing that he had scrapped plans for a version of the hugely popular game optimized for Oculus' head-mounted display, "Facebook creeps me out."
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/26/c...cebook-effect/
