ANNOUNCEMENT: Terms of Service Rollback6479

Originally Posted by jfantin
It was not unproductive Chris. Every obstacle and each stone in your path teach you something.

In the last week we learned more about the fragility of the business we are in. We learned about risks.

I have been telling to whoever wanted to hear that in every business there are risks that are out there in the open for you to see, and there are hidden risks that you cannot see or, sometimes, you don´t want to see.

In Matterport's case the more evident risk is that we are all tied together to a closed system that, if it ceased to exist would leave us with nothing more than a big ugly black heavy piece of furniture. You mentioned this in a post in Facebook when you said that Matterport is not a camera but a part of a bigger system. You said that the Matterport camera doesn´t do anything useful unless it is tied to the cloud processing provided by Matterport. And it is true!

So we all learned that we purchased the Seinfeld's equivalent in photography: a camera that does nothing! go figure!

During this last week we realized how close to the edge we are from where we are seated. How close we are from falling if our business depends solely on Matterport's ability to survive in the long term.

We also learned, if you read carefully what Bill Brown wrote in one angry answer to a MSP´s post, how difficult is the financial situation of Matterport. He practically said that wihtout this limited license that they were going to use to sell access of OUR models to third parties, they couldn´t finance further research and development. It is very interesting how honest people can be when they are angry!

This is not a Cannon or a Nikon, where you don´t mind about the future of the company. In Matterport's case "we are Matterport", so if Matterport closes, then we don´t have more business (unless you are a diversified entrepreneur that haven´t bet on a single horse in this particular race). And we have learned this too.

So, don´t feel bad about an "unproductive week" because it has been a week of deep and rich learning for all of us.

I only hope things get better.

Originally Posted by @DanSmigrod
Hi All,

I the Matterport Ecosystem vision of the future.

That said. Matterport executive team, you have created a mess. The only way to clean up this mess is to define the Customer as the one that is paying for the Matterport Cloud Account. Then, all other decisions will be easy.

The longer story ...

The Matterport announcement Sunday night (25 May 2018) of plans to roll-back the Terms came for the wrong reason:

"I’m announcing that we will be retracting the new language in 3.7 of our Spaces Processing and Hosting Terms very shortly due to the confusion that had been caused by the inaccurate article on Inman News and the high amount of misinformation being disseminated through social media."

The real reason is that Matterport has failed to define its Customer. While many of us would prefer that Matterport say its Customer is a professional photographer rather than the channel marketing conflict between professional photographer and real estate agents, I would define Customer as the Content Creator that pays for the Matterport Cloud account for processing, hosting and distribution.

If Matterport defined Customer in this way - rather than whom consumes the content or a 3rd party that is willing to license the content, then it would easy for Matterport to conclude the following as I stated in part in the WGAN Forum discussion last week:

✓ For Matterport Employees That Are Upset Too

Quote:

Originally Posted by @DanSmigrod
... You have read all the dystopian discussions from our Members - your clients. We all have been turned into raging fans from raving fans this week. Look at my video above.

It's not too late to right the ship. .....

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Hello,

I read the discussion in the We Get Around Network Forum this week. I agree with our customers.

1. Roll back the terms of service immediately to 18 February 2017
2. Develop a plan to offer our customers compensation for their intellectual property
3. Give our customers the option to opt-in either by Space, Folder of Spaces or all.
4. Whatever you do to make this right, the default can not be all content is opted-in
5. Develop a Code of Ethics (Includes: "We will not mine our customer's data to solicit their clients" )
6. Apologize to our customers.
7. Back up the apology with something of value (hosting, processing, GSV publishing)
8. Act swiftly
9. Be transparent. That was sneaky using the "Continue" Button to be the "Accept New Terms of Service"
10. Hold a Town Hall asking our team what can we do to restore the trust of our customers?

[Your Name]

---

Thank you and enjoy your weekend. May next week be better for all of us.

Dan

The key to resolving the dystopian world we are living in is for Matterport to clearing define internally and externally that the Customer is the content creator that pays Matterport. Not the consumer of the content. Not the 3rd party alliance. Not the homeowner.

Merriam-Webster defines Customer as "one that purchases a commodity or service."

It is very telling that the explanation is that we do not understand:

"I’m announcing that we will be retracting the new language in 3.7 of our Spaces Processing and Hosting Terms very shortly due to the confusion that had been caused by the inaccurate..."

Actually we do. We are your Customers. You don't think we are.

"Unfortunately, some parties, with various motivations, decided to proactively seed the story on Inman News that provided incorrect and misleading information about the terms change that brokers and agents then saw."

I applaud the person - or persons - that did reach out to Inman. I had planned to do so after the WGAN-TV Live at 5 (5 pm EST | GMT -5) Matterport Ecosystem Town Hall Tuesday (27 February 2018), if Matterport had not resolve this challenge by then.

"We are concerned that the wrong perception that the change created privacy issues might cause agents or brokers to rethink their use of Matterport, and we do not want this change to hurt our customers’ businesses. Protecting your current business is more important than developing the longer-term ecosystem, ..."

Are the Content Creators - we have the relation with our Clients - and know what right or rights we have to use their Spaces.

"...and I am very sorry for anyone whose business has been negatively impacted."

Apology accepted. Now is the time to back up the apology with substance. Free processing. Free hosting. Free White-Label for 12 months (then you can charge us). Most importantly, commit to politely asking us to Opt In: not default that we can Opt Out.

While a step in the right direction, it's the difference between night and day. You want to default to all content opted in because you are concerned that you will get low acceptance. Yes. That is correct: unless you provide an incentive for us such as a 1) a buy-out of our content; 2) monthly recurring revenue for model as long as you use our content; 3) other TBD.

If you think Customer first, then the answers will be obvious.

The point is that you need to make this win-win-win. If we share in the long-term wealth of the Content we create, we might even create it for free knowing that we will make more money from monthly recurring revenue from our content. Just a thought. Reward us. We are the Customer.

"We were never taking your copyright, were never giving ourselves the ability to market to homeowners or agents directly, and were never getting the ability to publicly share the models. However, there are now agents and brokers out there who believe we were doing some or all of these things. That is unfortunate."

We all understand that Matterport has usurped our Copyright in a mangled explanation. You give us the crayons and paper to create art that we own, but the art can only be hung in your museum. Okay. Fine. We agreed to that we bought our Camera. That has not changed. What has changed is that we agreed to hanging the art for a specific length of time. We didn't agree that you were going to take the art show on the road and make money for exhibition and not pay us. If we are truly Matterport Service Partners – then Partner with us on the revenue share.

Have us excited about sharing in the wealth creation.

To repeat, I the Matterport Ecosystem vision of the future. The only way to clean up this mess is to define the Customer as the one that is paying for the Matterport Cloud Account. Then, all other decisions will be easy.

What do you think?

Thanks,

Dan

Originally Posted by @Gerhard
2) POST REVIEWS ONLINE -

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Matterport/reviews/

Thye have removed their review section today.

Originally Posted by DanSmigrod
To repeat, I the Matterport Ecosystem vision of the future. The only way to clean up this mess is to define the Customer as the one that is paying for the Matterport Cloud Account. Then, all other decisions will be easy.