[trymas]

> Google is a tech company - and they had absolutely no idea how to market and position those glasses to consumers.

wat.

1. G-glass != snapchat spectacles.

2. IMHO google tried to create new accessory - smart glasses, they first wanted to introduce it to developers to create apps for it.

3. Either:

3.1. Google saw that it was not worth it at that time. Google is in business of making money after all and not in business of making selfish and shameless teenagers happy.

3.2. The idea was burned down by privacy concerns. G-glass became recognizable enough that users won't use because public will dismiss them due to privacy reasons and vice versa.

I loathe 'startups' like snapchat (though I understand there's money when such big user base takes pictures/videos of everything around them), but IMHO it's a matter of time when teenagers will grab another new and hip service to scream their daily lives to the world and all 'genius of marketing' will disappear.

[edblarney]

If they wold like hotcakes 3.1 would not matter and 3.2 would be rectified enough to assuage the plebes.

Your point 'they tried to create a new accessory': why is a tech company trying to create an 'accessory' that nobody wants, and is completely out of their domain?

Snapchat is very intelligently extending their brand and user experience a little bit. Google was pushing tech.

Things that we wear, are part of our culture, they are about fashion, trends, and to some degree functionality.

Google his a tech company that has absolutely no clue how to do consumer marketing - this is evident in almost everything they do.

When they provide a high degree of utility - then they win - they should stick to that.

Snapchat is doing it exactly right. And there's no reason to believe that in a few years, the Snapchat glasses won't be as powerful and 'app-ish' as the Google glasses.

[notahacker]

Google Glass was "almost universally used and appreciated benefits of Android tablets/phones in front of your face". Its potential for mainstream use was limited because most people don't want to socialise with someone with a surreptitious recording device attached to their head.

Snapchat is "mildly addictive product within certain demographics in front of your face". Reasons to assume that it will remain a tiny niche product, probably even within the Snapchat demographic, include most people not wanting to socialise with someone with a surreptitious recording device attached to their head

[ecspike]

Here we go again with the undying myth of everyone/most with Glass all secretly recording everyone. Glass is no more surreptitious than Spectacles.

My peer group used Glass for active stuff. We took video of ourselves rollerblading, playing hockey, doing OCRs, playing with our kids. The battery was never good enough to record that long. It would become physically uncomfortable because the battery would become hot against your temple.

[notahacker]

I'm sure all of that is true. Which doesn't change the tendency of people to think that the person looking at them who might be recording the conversation to send to their internet buddies is a weirdo. Thats true whether the distinctive-looking video-augmented eyepiece is Google bland or Snapchat childish

[TeMPOraL]

> why is a tech company trying to create an 'accessory' that nobody wants

Isn't this how, well, almost all consumer tech is created? Nobody wanted cellphones before cellphones. Nobody wanted smartphones before smartphones. Users don't demand things, they choose from what's available.

Google created a pretty cool piece of tech, and I'm personally saddened it failed. Hopefully someone else does the marketing part right. Or even better, I hope that maybe component prices will go down (particularly, prisms for AR displays); I'd happily build a DIY solution for myself.

[edblarney]

"Nobody wanted cellphones before cellphones."

Everybody wanted them. Do you remember 'car phones'?

Everybody wanted something they could hold in their hands to talk to other people.

Nobody wants a 'computer on their face' which looks like a computer, and doesn't do much.

Snapchats glasses fit perfectly with the Snapchat experience, which on the whole is nothing like most other chat apps, and nothing like Google.

Snapchats glasses are focused on sharing 'serendipitous moments of irreverence among young people' - and that's exactly their brand promise.

I'm not sure if these glasses will become mainstay or grow to be something bigger - but everyone in tech should take note of how Snapchat is doing this.

It's brilliant. Nobody in the Valley - save maybe Apple - even comes close to this kind of smart consumer marketing.