Google Glass hasn’t always enjoyed the best of public images. There can’t be too many products that have found themselves banned in everywhere from bars to workplaces to cars (that one later reversed), with governments raising privacy concerns and even noted fans wondering whether the product may be doomed.
Forbesstaff writer Jeff Bercovici wondered whether early Glass advocate Robert Scoble was right in accusing Google of having botched the PR. Marketing head Ed Sanders, perhaps predictably, says no.
The backlash is a result of the way Google decided to roll out Glass, he says — but it was a deliberate decision to do it that way, with a limited public beta surrounded by a nimbus of hype and curiosity. “Yes, it was an unusual step of doing it so exposed, and risks come with that,” he says. “We knew there would be downsides, but we also knew and know there would be tremendous upside” …
There’s been no shortage of critique regarding Google Glass, its future, privacy, and of course cost. A new Google+ write-up by the most famous “Glasshole” Robert Scoble raises a number of issues relating to Glass and the potential for it to be both wildly popular and doomed before it even gets started. Scoble lists a number of reasons why it’s possible that Glass could be both successful or find itself on the shelf of great Google products that were introduced before their time.
Scoble does note that this is still a rumor at this point, but hopefully we’ll get some more details soon. While previous reports claimed that Google Glass could be available for everyone to purchase by the end of the year, Google confirmed earlier this week that Glass will not begin shipping to consumers until at least 2014.
Robert Scoble isn’t mincing words on Google Glass. He thinks it will be big, big, big. His review after having Google Glass for two weeks reads like he’s had an epiphany and the only thing preventing these from ruling the universe is Larry Page’s inability to price these things as low as $200. His 6 points:
1. I will never live a day of my life from now on without it (or a competitor). It’s that significant.
2. The success of this totally depends on price. Each audience I asked at the end of my presentations “who would buy this?” As the price got down to $200 literally every hand went up. At $500 a few hands went up. This was consistent, whether talking with students, or more mainstream, older audiences.
3. Nearly everyone had an emotional outburst of “wow” or “amazing” or “that’s crazy” or “stunning.”
4. At NextWeb 50 people surrounded me and wouldn’t let me leave until they had a chance at trying them. I haven’t seen that kind of product angst at a conference for a while. This happened to me all week long, it is just crazy.
5. Most of the privacy concerns I had before coming to Germany just didn’t show up. I was shocked by how few negative reactions I got (only one, where an audience member said he wouldn’t talk to me with them on). Funny, someone asked me to try them in a bathroom (I had them aimed up at that time and refused).
6. There is a total generational gap that I found. The older people said they would use them, probably, but were far more skeptical, or, at minimum, less passionate about the fact that these are the future, than the 13-21-year-olds I met.
It is important to keep in mind the context of his perspective. He’s a uber-geek who spends his life immersed in technology. Some people will find the idea of wearing a computer on your face unsettling and there undoubtedly will be backlash. The wow factor will wear off and they will have to produce some value. Right now image and video taking are the key apps. As Scoble mentioned, other apps are coming fast and furious.
And, no, I don’t believe they won’t be $200 (unless there is a subsidy like phones). If Google is charging developers $1500/pop, there is no way Google can make them for $200, at least in the near future.
All of those disclaimers aside, I really do see a lot of opportunity for Google here. They’ve thought forward and this bet on the future of technology is going to change things. Expand Expanding Close
When Google announced some updates to Google+ during its I/O keynote this week, perhaps apart from the new iPad compatible tablet version, the most talked about new feature was the Facebook-like invitations called “Events.” While Google calendar integration in the Events feature was supposed to be a big selling point, Google unfortunately did not provide users with control over which invites were added to their calendars. The issue led to massive amounts of spam in the form of notifications and calendar entries—most notably for Google+ users with large followings. Robert Scoble outlined the problem in a Google+ post:
Hey, +Vic Gundotra the way you rolled out the new Google+ events feature was — by far — the worst social launch ever… Not only did it spam the crap out of my notifications and my Google+ events page but it added events — hundreds of them — onto my calendar…My calendar is MINE. Not yours. You should NEVER put anything on it that I don’t approve of… I have turned down every event and they are still on my calendar so now I have to delete them one-by-one… By the way, I’ve been asking for noise controls since day one and you guys simply aren’t getting it. Amazingly bad service here folks.
As noted by Scoble, another avid Google+ user, Will Wheaton, highlighted the issue and received a response from Google’s Senior Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra: Expand Expanding Close
Somebody (Thomas Hawk – Flickr) with a real camera was on the scene last night to capture Project Glass’ prototypes sitting on Google Co-founder Sergey Brin’s dome.
Robert Scoble has posted some highlights of his talk with Google VP +Vic Gundotra regarding the Google+ name fiaso. Gundotra told Scoble Google deleted Google+ accounts that spell their names in “weird ways like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like “god” or worse.”
There have been reports that Google has had a couple missteps in their deleting process. Gundotra says Google is working on making this a smoother process:
He says they have made some mistakes while doing the first pass at this and they are learning. He also says the team will change how they communicate with people. IE, let them know what they are doing wrong, etc.
