[sssparkkk]

So how about this: the influencers on Snapchat are all recording themselves most of the time. These glasses did nothing to help with that particular and most popular use case.

I feel really weird for being the first to bring this up, it seems pretty obvious to me the main reason these glasses weren't going to catch on.

[AJ007]

After I got the spectacles here were the reactions I got, from people in the 21-35 demographic:

First, wow I had no idea these existed

Second, where can I get them

Third, (months later) lost interest

Snapchat should have just had a buy now button in the app. Instead they tried to do some guerrilla marketing thing. If you have a captive audience of tens of millions of people, you don't need to create buzz around your product. Either you made something people want or you didn't. Me personally, they hurt my face. So I wore them about twice.

[JumpCrisscross]

> If you have a captive audience of tens of millions of people, you don't need to create buzz around your product

The guerrilla marketing was to keep Robert Scobles [1] from setting the Spectacles' zeitgeist. In that, it worked.

I agree that after they had lines they should have started marketing in app. A smooth transition would involve selectively marketing to those deemed to be general influencers, and then working down to the broader population. As a social network, it does seem odd to give away that home-field advantage.

[1] http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5826657846e27af2008...

[gaius]

The guerrilla marketing was to keep Robert Scobles

Prescient, given how toxic his personal brand now is.

[basch]

can you imagine if they just gave everyone a pair for free, instead of letting them rot in a warehouse?

[colejohnson66]

But there’s no money to be made with that. The people who would use them are already using Snapchat, so the conversion rate would be 0%

[basch]

theres no money to be made getting people to constantly use your service?

i cant imagine the increase in content snapchat would have if it were recording what every subscriber was looking at.

[yourapostasy]

There is a possibility that Snapchat realized that aspect of the influencers population, and sought to expand their revenue base by creating another large use case with Spectacles.

I think we're in a spontaneity uncanny valley for that kind of use case, though, and we have to wait for the hardware (mostly low energy processing and battery) tech to catch up before we climb out of the valley. A lot of the popular content has some element of surprise/spontaneity to hook eyeballs in. I suspect a device form factor like Spectacles, or really, the "recording others" use case, won't take off for the masses until it is as light as normal sunglasses, as stylish, continuously records HD video and high-grade audio 16-20 hours before needing a recharge, and is coupled with management software that makes it easy to pick out what you want to publish (if you exclaim, "Woah! Did you see that!?", or more prosaically, "Worldsta-a-a-r!", that's picked up for a potential clip to publish, so you don't have to scrub through hours of video). Maybe coupled with an AR interface that gives you on-the-spot access to the publishing interface.

Until then, the "recording others" use case will likely continue to be dominated by right-place-right-time smartphone recordings, and pro/pro-am publishers/bloggers with scripted/guided content like what we see on YouTube today.

[bambax]

A selfie gadget would be an amazing thing. Maybe it could simply be an accessory to a phone, a variation on the selfie stick that would let you use the back camera (the good one) for selfies.

It strikes me as very strange that on all phones the good camera is on the back and the crappy one on the front. Many people mostly take selfies with their phones and so it would make much more sense to do the opposite.

[opencl]

There have been a few 'selfie phones' (Zenfone Selfie, HTC Eye, Xperia XA Ultra) with identical front and rear cameras but clearly they never really took off.

[fjsolwmv]

You don't need 20MP of your face, that detail is undesirable. You want more MPs when the image is many people or a landscape

[Balgair]

I mean, a lot of us felt this way, but yeah, I think you are the first to articulate it.

What they actually wanted was something more like the cop drones in the new Blade Runner that hover about and take video in near silence. There are quite a few kickstarters that claim they can do this, but the drones are loud. This generates attention on the drone, not the corporate-shill. Err, sorry, snap-fluencer, my bad. Also, the battery life is terrible and I can see airspace getting crowded at homecoming in the multi-use-room.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sqdr/hexo-your-autonomo...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdog/airdog-worlds-fi...

[lsc]

yeah, what they need are programmable drones that follow them around, recording. Bruce Sterling suggested such a thing in "The Artificial Kid" - and I think we've got the tech to actually kinda do it now.

[icebraining]

That was the Lily: https://www.wired.com/2015/05/lily-robotics-drone/

Spoiler: the video was misleading (California is suing them for false advertising) and the company is dead.

[secabeen]

Mayfield Robotics is making a non-flying version of this, called the Kuri: https://www.heykuri.com/

It is a real product, founded by a bunch of robotics people from Harvey Mudd.

[lsc]

The camera angle seems like it could be... problematic, though.

Also it doesn't look like it has the capability to follow me in even most sedate urban environments. I mean, I'm not asking for stairs, but that thing looks like it'd have a hard time with a sidewalk crack.

Both those problems could probably be solved by making it bigger.

[drawkbox]

yeah, what they need are programmable drones that follow them around, recording.

They can call it the "paparazzi" and Snapchat users will eat it up, it would be air and land based that makes them look like stars.

In all seriousness, the biggest use of Snapchat Spectacles or Google Glass is exploring but that view does lose the star aspect of what people desire on Snapchat. GoPro has that covered but also just a view of what the person is seeing isn't always the best view.

It could work with the drone/bot aspect to make it a full production. Still though, Snapchat is obsessed with angles that make you look the best so it might be something that would need to be edited/managed like a photo/video.

[205guy]

Seems like the Airdog has the functionality, by following a beacon worn on the subject. I just read a good and thorough review about it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdog/introducing-the-...

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/07/airdog-adii-2nd-gen-spor...

[nradov]

The new iBubble underwater camera drone supposedly does that for scuba divers. Floating in the water with neutral buoyancy takes less power than flying so battery life should be decent.

https://ibubble.camera/

[zild3d]

doesnt DJI spark have follow me, and selfie gestures?

[macintux]

Yes, as do other DJI drones, but only for a few minutes, and of course the whole "you can't actually fly a drone here without calling the 5 airports in the area" rules tends to put a damper on things.

[lsc]

>of course the whole "you can't actually fly a drone here without calling the 5 airports in the area" rules tends to put a damper on things

I could be wrong, but I bet there's a reasonably large market for 'inside only' selfie drones. If you look at who is posting on youtube, most of it is filmed indoors.

[fezz]

Misdirected Narcissism. Never forget who's the star.

[chiefalchemist]

Shame I can only upvote this once.