How Google Screwed Up Google Glass | Hacker News Reader

How Google Screwed Up Google Glass

forbes.com

14 pointschrisdinn12 comments

Methinks the author really needs to read Crossing the Chasm, and understand the difference between early adopters and early majority. Google Glass doesn't need to be pretty and perfect right out of the box. It just needs to be far enough along that the early adopters will use it to shake out the bugs. A mainstream market is still a rev or three down the road.

What Google Glass needs isn't to be instantly perfect and mainstream. No, it just needs to avoid becoming a Segway. That's the hard part.

I think what muddies the waters here is Google's track-record with "beta" products. Namely, now-standard things like Gmail were technically in beta forever, but were practically speaking consumer-ready products by the time people were buzzing about it.

Not that I don't agree with your original point (I do), but I think the above is perhaps a relevant peek into the author's mindset.

I expected them to mention the camera and microphone. It's not the only thing to pick on but it's what killed my interest in a devkit. The camera turns me from an idiot wearing some nerdy bullshit into asshole. I'll gladly look like an idiot if I have to, but I'm not going to force a camera into social situations and expect people to be OK with it using "just deal with it" rationalizations about how expectations w/r/t cameras are changing.

Yup, the camera is also what killed it for me. I'm exactly the sort of guy who would pay fifteen hundred bucks for a hud, especially if it had even a nascent software ecosystem (I've already got a twiddler) And I'm absolutely okay wearing a bunch of nerdy shit on my face.

The thing that annoys me is that because of google glass, the average person now expects a HUD to come with a camera, too, which takes the whole concept from nerdy, which I can embrace, to creepy, which I try to avoid.

Google may have killed the very concept of a ubiquitous HUD.

Good point. They should have left out the camera, and made it an optional bluetooth accessory that was a full sized digital recreation of Louis Mendes's Graflex Speed Graphic Press Camera. That way the glasshole hipsters could look totally retro and would get all the attention they wanted, and people would know they were having their picture taken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mendes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_Graphic

> The world “glasshole” has now risen to the same prominence as “selfie” and “twerk.”

No, no it hasn't. With that goes the argument.

How did you get from "the term 'glasshole' isn't as prominent as 'selfie' and 'twerk'" to "glass is successful"? Please fill me in on the rest of your argument.

I never made that statement. You've invented a quote.

The article argues that glass is not successful (that's what they mean by "How Google Screwed Up Google Glass"), and you say you disagree with that argument.

Didn't you read the article? So what did you mean by "with that goes the argument", if not to disagree with the argument presented in the article, and what did you think the article was arguing?

What I don't understand is why you'd throw out the entire argument, which makes a lot of sense to me, just because you don't agree with what it said about selfies and twerks.

> you say you disagree with that argument

Disagreeing with an argument does not mean supporting the inverse of the argument. That is a false dichotomy fallacy.

The argument is that Glass is a failure as a product as it is universally disliked and too expensive. Glass however is clearly not an actual product on sale in general and does not appear to be universally disliked.

With that, goes the argument. If Glass were a real product and really disliked they might have a point. At this point however it's a technology demonstrator focused on by people with a loose understanding of these matters.

The terms you disagree with were NOT the only reasons they gave to support their argument, you know.

Disagreeing with one part of an argument does not make the whole argument invalid, because they gave many reasons Glass is a failure, and the argument does not depend on every reason they gave to be true.

For example, maybe they wanted to make a joke. To be funny, you know. Ha ha. Oh wait, your name is "hahainternet," so why do I have to explain this to you?

Is it that the word "glasshole" tweaks you so much, and you don't find it funny? Hey wait, you're not actually wearing one of those things, are you??! Aren't glassholes socially obligated to disclose stuff like that in public? Are you recording this??!

https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/1015157966444465...

https://plus.google.com/+Scobleizer/posts/1UfNLdZAN4h

Only just noticed this response Don. Sorry for the delay.

Those are the only substantive arguments they offer, and no, I don't own a Glass. I wish I did but I can't justify $1500 on alpha/beta tech.

I wear glasses though, so they could be incredibly useful to me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com