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At the Philadelphia Local U last week I had a chance to touch Matt McGee’s Glass. It was exhilarating, disturbing, interesting, disorienting and a number of other adjectives. Everyone at the table was anxious to try it and see what it did and how it works.<\/p>\n
I was struck by its awkwardness and obtrusiveness as a wearable device and it is clear why it has already engendered<\/a> a new noun: Glasshole. But I was also amazed at the power that an always on, always present, always connected device has and its obvious impact on local. Despite my inability to bond with the device it raised the question for me: Is this the future of computing?<\/p>\n My personal answer as to whether the Glass was THE PRODUCT was “not this product, not this form factor<\/em>” as it didn’t go far enough for me to define a compelling experience. I wasn’t sure what I was hiring it to do (as Horace Diedu always says).<\/p>\n That though raised the question: Was it me or was it the Glass that was the problem? Was I being myopic and it was really the future?<\/p>\n To try to get out of my own way I asked all of the folks at Local U (whose opinions I value very highly) to give me some perspective by answering<\/a> the following questions:<\/p>\n Macintosh was a metaphor for desktop computing. The iPhone became the metaphor for smart phones. The early products defined what other products needed to be like.<\/em><\/p>\n 1) Do you think that the Google Glass is a metaphor for the next generation of small, wearable computers?
\n2) Is it a winner?
\n3) Do you think that Google will make Glass the market leader in the category?<\/p>\n