Outcomes of the Google Glass column
By Mark Hurst • Mar 12, 2013
Since starting the Creative Good blog in 1997, I've never seen a post here get the response generated by The Google Glass feature no one is talking about. It went viral shortly after I published it on Feb 28. Here are the sharing counts on major social networks as of today:
Facebook: over 16,000
Twitter: 6,300
Google Plus: 1,400
That's just for the English-language version. The column is now also available in Spanish, French, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Chinese (simplified). The press has picked up on it, too: WSJ.com, the Guardian, the Telegraph, and the Dutch newspaper NRC Next have all quoted the column or run excerpts.
Well, some press has picked up on it. Sadly, no technology journalist among the U.S.'s mainstream media has commented on the issues raised by the column (please correct me if I'm wrong!). However, since the column was published, we did learn that...
JetBlue has announced a possible use of Glass at airports (via The Verge, leading tech blog)
the New York Times is part of an initial group of likely apps for Glass (via The Verge, mentioning NYT)
...which feels like a bit of a disconnect. The response to the column shows that many people - from normal folks to techies and everyone in between - have some questions about Google Glass. Real questions about what it means for their experience on the streets, in restaurants, anywhere in public. The technology press doesn't seem to be responding to those questions. In all of this, Google had one - just one - public response that I could find. In response to the WSJ.com piece, a Google spokesperson had this response:
It is still very early days for Glass, and we expect that as with other new technologies, such as cell phones, behaviors and social norms will develop over time.
In other words: get used to it.
Is this the best we can hope for, from the tech industry?