“There are three sides to every story: Your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying.”
– Robert Evans (“The Kid Stays in the Picture”)
I recently met up with my friend and one-time business partner, Steve Lee, who is product director on the Google Glass project, and before that, ran product management on Google Maps for Mobile.
Other than a quick tour of the device, Steve basically let me dive in, so as to experience Glass with a beginner’s mind. I won’t bother reviewing the basic capabilities and specs, which have been covered exhaustively already.
Instead I want to focus on some of the points that are in debate, and whether I believe that Glass is destined to succeed.
Glass is translucent; designed to be invisible
In “Waves of Power,” David Moschella shows how new disruptive industries begin as verticals, since the complete product solution requires one provider to deliver the whole enchilada.
The new industry continues on this path until the solutions finally reach the “good enough” stage, when the larger trend becomes horizontal orientation, so as to achieve ubiquity, commoditization and the broadest possible ecosystem. (In passing, one can see the battle between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android in this light.) The endgame, so to speak, is that the technology becomes persistent, embedded and ever-present to the point of being “invisible.”
It’s a paradoxical concept to be sure. On the one hand, the technology is everywhere; how can it be invisible? On the other, it’s because it’s everywhere that we no longer think about it as exceptional – and, equally, grand solutions can anticipate and incorporate its ever-presence.
Read the full post HERE.
UPDATE: This piece has obviously struck a chord with the rank and file at GigaOM, based upon the storm of comments. Check it out.
UPDATE 2: Google just announced a bunch of third-party apps coming to the platform, including Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, CNN, Elle and Evernote.
Related:
- You say you want a revolution? It's called post-PC computing
- Apple's segmentation strategy, and the folly of conventional wisdom
- Horizontal, Vertical and the Google Path to Riches
