[Junk_Collector]

It's definitely a funny one. I hadn't heard of it but it appears to be an Instagram alike for 3D models and VR. If Google was trying to establish themselves as a first mover platform in the VR space, it's odd that they would can such a product before VR itself has finished taking off. It signals that they actually have no interests in VR going forward but it's Google so you never know, they will probably have 4 of these services at some point in the future and you'll never know when or where one starts and stops. For an advertising company, Google is remarkably bad at advertising their own products.

[DHPersonal]

Google has already shown that they're willing to try: they've made Tango (AR, discontinued), Google Glass (AR, enterprise-only), ARCore (AR, active), Cardboard (VR, discontinued), and Daydream (VR, discontinued).

[throwaway34241]

I’ve never been able to understand their VR approach. They actually brought ~$500 mobile VR daydream headsets to market (with their HW partners) with cameras doing inside-out positional tracking but no tracked controllers. Everyone I talked to in the VR scene at the time (at conferences etc) that had tried some HW knew 3D input was critical for UX and the near term future and this was a dead end. But Google puts a ton of effort into launching an obviously not-yet-viable product, then after doing the most technically difficult part doesn’t follow through on the last step and lets FB eat their lunch.

I could understand putting in less effort, or more effort, but failing the way they did was mind boggling and just seems like lack of a strategy on the management level.

[datagram]

Given what I know about Google culture, which has also been brought up in other threads here, this isn't that surprising. I think because of the extent to which their promotion process relies on demonstrating technical achievement, it's hard for them to get enough people to work on things if they aren't technically challenging.

[blevin]

These resemble portfolio hedging bets on potential future paths of technology playforms that could affect their ad biz. Google seems to buy a spread of small bets with several-year expiry and high convexity (i.e. big payout if equilibrium shifts in that direction). I suspect a number of these come out of discussions anticipating what could be next after mobile.