Sharing is impulsive, don’t make users premeditate recording

Every 60 seconds on Facebook: 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded (according to The Social Skinny).

That wouldn’t be true if everyone needed to download extra software and edit everything they wanted to share.

The internet is buzzing with content because people decide to share things impulsively.

In today’s culture, if it’s not getting shared online — it’s not happening.

Every step that users are stuck navigating after their initial impulse to share is one more step leading them to give up.

How many steps does it take to share a selfie?

  1. Think “I want a selfie”
  2. Open camera app
  3. Capture selfie
  4. Share

So how many steps does it take to share a moment of VR?

Well, there are two common ways to share VR right now: mixed reality and screen capture.

Steps for Mixed Reality:

  1. Buy a real-life video camera, a green-screen and 3rd controller.
  2. Setup the green-screen and get the studio lighting just right.
  3. 3D print a controller mount for your camera.
    • (wait)
  4. Manually calibrate the virtual camera to match the real camera.
    • (bang head against wall)
  5. Record.
  6. Either Chroma key the green screen live or in post-production.
  7. Edit.
  8. Upload.
  9. Share

And even then, probably none of your fans can do this because you usually need to do it from inside the Unity source-project.

So what if you want a user’s moment to go viral?

Well, they don’t have your Unity source-project, they’re stuck using screen-capture.

Steps for Screen Capture:

  1. Premeditate that this app is going to have a moment happen that you’re going to want to share.
    • (This step isn’t going to happen by the everyday user, so your already F#$!ed)
  2. Google search and download additional screen-capture software.
  3. Install screen-capture software.
  4. Navigate video-inputs, file-formats and encoding-bitrates.
  5. Find the video-source for the signal running to the headset.
  6. Launch VR app.
  7. Lift headset to find Start Recording button
  8. Play (and hope that exciting moment happens…)
    • (although if it did, it’s likely that you just made a very jittery video)
  9. Lift headset to find Stop Recording button
  10. Close VR app.
  11. Edit
    • (Because you have to since the video has you twice lifting your headset searching for start/stop buttons)
  12. Upload
Nobody wants to watch a whole industry presented from this angle.

Only a few people are going to go through all that trouble. Do you want to bet that those select few are going to be the ones with that viral moment?


The hoops we have to jump through to share a single VR moment is killing this whole industry.

Sharing isn’t about presenting perfection, it’s about being part of a conversation.

Whether you use Pryde, someone else, or code your own solution, you need to make sharing VR as many steps as sharing a selfie.

Think it. Capture it. Share it.

And with the Pryde Viral sharing service, you can even streamline those steps, by automatically uploading what gets captured to social media.

With Pryde Viral, instead of lifting the HMD to find the recording buttons– by the time you lift the HMD, your moment is already on YouTube, and the video is playing right before your eyes.

VR adopters want to share their excitement. Help them.

You have a great VR app, that’s about to get a lot better. We want to make sure people see it.



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