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For Some Would-Be Google Glass Buyers and Devs, Delays May Mean Giving Up
ErnieKey writes with a Reuters story that says Google's Glass, not yet out for general purchase, has been wearing on the patience of both developers and would-be customers: "After an initial burst of enthusiasm, signs that consumers are giving up on Glass have been building.' Is it true that Google Goggles are simply not attractive to wear? Or perhaps it's the invasion of privacy that is deterring people from wearing them. Regardless, Google needs to change something quickly before they lose all their potential customers. From the article: Of 16 Glass app makers contacted, nine said that they had stopped work on their projects or abandoned them, mostly because of the lack of customers or limitations of the device. Three more have switched to developing for business, leaving behind consumer projects.
Plenty of larger developers remain with Glass. The nearly 100 apps on the official website include Facebook and OpenTable, although one major player recently defected: Twitter.
"If there was 200 million Google Glasses sold, it would be a different perspective. There's no market at this point," said Tom Frencel, the chief executive of Little Guy Games, which put development of a Glass game on hold this year and is looking at other platforms, including the Facebook-owned virtual-reality goggles Oculus Rift.
Several key Google employees instrumental to developing Glass have left the company in the last six months, including lead developer Babak Parviz, electrical engineering chief Adrian Wong, and Ossama Alami, director of developer relations.
Google needs to change something quickly before they lose all their potential customers.
They might not be losing potential customers. Perhaps the market is just already saturated.
The market is probably saturated, but only because the item is only appealing to a very small market.
First and foremost, you need someone who'd want an always on cellphone display mounted right in front of his eye. Now, I could see me wanting this. Granted, I've been into wearable computing for a while now, but I could well see a lot of people who can't take their fingers off their cellphone long enough to hold down a sensible conversation to want a HMD. That certainly would not be the problem, I can well see a lot of technically interested people wanting something like this. And if the "group selector" ended here, there would actually probably be a huge market for this item.
Then there's the price, which pretty much eliminates the under-21 crowd, arguably one of the biggest early adopters today. Face it, if some cellphone has some new feature, rest assured some high school kid will bind itself to some cell company for longer than their average relationship lasts so they can afford it. Since there is no such thing with Google Glass and the item costs quite a pretty penny, what's left after these two are technologically inclined people with quite a bit of money to spare on what is essentially a novelty luxury item.
The last nail for the coffin is Google itself. Google now doesn't really have a reputation of not wanting to know everything their customers do. That's basically their business model. They sell information. And with Google Glass you'd not only not know where it's been, you also won't know where it is going. And even if they themselves don't really care about privacy, it also means that their friends and collegues must not care about it, or else ... why bother buying something that you can't really use as soon as anyone is nearby? Because the VERY FIRST thing I'd ask a Google Glass user to do is take the thing off while I'm around. Alternatively I'll remove it from his nose.
So the market is for technically inclined people who have good enough jobs to afford this luxury who are neither worried about their privacy nor have coworkers or friends who are.
And that market is REALLY tiny.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And outside of a minuscule group of techno-hipsters, the general population couldn't give a shit less.
I was walking in the park this summer and these two arrogant looking douchebags were wearing them. I then realized that I lumped them in with smokers as people who just don't give a crap about other people's rights. I have a right to a pollution free environment, and I have a right to not have my every move tracked by a mega corporation.
So my friend called them glassholes loud enough for them to hear and they didn't even flinch. Obviously not the first person to call them this. When people regularly abuse users of a product then maybe there should be a rethink of the use of that product.
I don't mind someone biking by with their gopro seeing that not every moment is being made available to a faceless corporation. Unless I burst into flames while the gopro person is going by the footage will doubtfully be uploaded. But with any google ass type technology there is a huge chance that some software is able to make a note of my face, place, time, the faces around me, etc. Then this can easily be used to compile a stunningly comprehensive summation of my life. If only 5% of people were wearing them then 1 in 20 people that you pass would be able to note your presence. Without any other information about me that would allow google to compile a map of where I live, where I work, where my friends and family live, who I am in a relationship with, that I have kids, where I shop, where I vacation, everything. Then as this technology gets better it could even start going nuts (and it isn't like google doesn't love more information) and gathering what I wear, what I am buying, etc.
While google glass isn't anywhere near that yet, these things are very close, and why wouldn't google gather this fantastically valuable information. They can swear on a stack of bibles that they won't be evil, but I don't remember ever hearing of google's massive storage being audited. Not to mention that they could use familiar weasel words like "Only collecting meta data."
So I for one am extremely happy to hear that this project is falling flat on its face.