The cool things we hold in store for 2020 🌌

2019 was undoubtedly a very cool year for the web. VR didn’t really explode yet but AR definitely did; Salesforce bought Wordpress and Adobe bought Medium. But it was also our first full year of activity after being launched in September 2018 in Paris. 2019 was also a very cool year for us, where we went from 500 users on an alpha phase of one tool to 3500 users on 3 different tools, 300 integrations and almost 500k impressions of content created on our platform… yay!

But we are just at the beginning of our journey to make the web cool again with our community, and 2020 will be key in our development. You will discover the few important things we expect for us and our community for this new year!

Cool updates of our existing tools 🌌

A deep UI (design) update, but also a lot of features asked by our community.

• Naker.Story: When we released Hérodote, the first stable version, we wanted to target 3D designers, used to 3D creation, vocabulary and UI. We came to realize that Naker was appreciated not only by 3D professionals but more globally by web designers and developers, seeking for a simple solution to create interactive 3D content.
  Our new version objective is to become easier to use with a large focus on templates and presets.
  Suggest and vote for new features here — available February 2020
• Naker.Back: Starting to become a reference in terms of web background like ParticleJS, VantaJS or CoolBackgrounds.io, Naker.Back is just at the beginning of its journey. We will add multi-particle support, animated particles and other options without particles!
  Suggest and vote for new features here — available April 2020
• Naker.Form: Launched at the very end of the year, the tool is used by thousands of people in a few weeks already. The creation experience will be improved and many more options and presets will come too.
  Suggest and vote for new features here — available February 2020

Cool brand new tools 🌌

New ways to make any website cooler, all asked by our community. The features we add, the product we develop are always asked by our community and build together with you.

• Naker.Model: Our objective is to identify where WebGL and interactivity can be a simple and efficient way to improve the experience for the visitors. The most common usage of 3D models is to simply display them on a website or e-commerce. We’ll release this year our simple viewer with cool interactive options suggested by our community (yes, you!)
  available summer 2020
• Naker.Filter: As said in the introduction, 2019 was the year of AR, and so will be 2020. A lot of our current users are web agencies and freelances, looking to produce 360 campaigns for their customers. Instagram / Snapchat filters are more and more asked by brands and we’ve been asked a lot of times for a tool to create simple AR filters for simple use cases.
  available end 2020
• Naker.Config: Meanwhile, e-commerce is on a new age, with Shopify announcing the support of 3D models, the rise of startups like ThreeKit or Sketchfab. It’s not a big surprise that a 3D configurator for e-commerce has been the most asked tool in 2019 by our community. Affordable, easy-to-use and fast to deploy are on the menu for what looks like a major step for us.
  available April-May 2020

Our global strategy to support our vision 🌌

Maybe the most important, our cross-company projects for the year.

• Plugins: 2019 was also the year of no-code tools, with the first edition of the No Code Conf organized by Webflow. Our promise to create no-code tools will be completely accomplished by improving the embed experience and developing specific plug-ins for frameworks and CMS. It will become even easier to make the web cool again!
• Gamification: “Creating on Naker feels a bit like being in a videogame” according to a French media. And yes, we love both videogames design and mechanics. We will focus this year on creating fun and challenge during the creation experience: rankings, challenges, levels and a lot of fun.
• Professional plans: You may have noticed we don’t have any pricing page on our website yet because the #1 reason for you to contact us on the chat is to ask about our business model. We believe that our community is our most valuable asset, and we’ve been focusing on growing it. After listening to your feedback, diverse professional plans will emerge and it will be possible to easily upgrade your free plan according to your needs.

As mentioned in her recent article for DesignModo, “Top 11 Web Design and UI Trends for 2020”, a major 2020 trend is to “3D everything”; Carrie Cousins comments:

Adding depth creates a greater sense of realism for a design. Three-dimensional imagery is an extension of that idea. It’s a trend we started to see a lot of near the end of the decade, and expect to see a lot more of into 2020.

The interactive revolution is on its way. We are proud to be part of this journey with our 3500 members who also believe we gonna make the web cool again 🌌