A week ago, I and many others were stopped in our tracks by the video released by Google to accompany their promotion – sadly, in North America only – for early adopters to try Google Glass.
Since its debut announcement a year ago, many people have been eagerly anticipating Glass. Back then, in its demo form, it was little more than a digital camera on a headset, but it was easy to see how it might develop, particularly in its Augmented Reality (AR) capabilities. Now, some of those capabilities are being fleshed out and they highlight the way Glass will integrate with Google’s other apps, services and products.
Consider for a moment Google+ Events.
Before this month’s trip to Poland with the British Guild of Travel Writers, I set up a G+ Event for BGTW members on G+, which went ‘live’ as we landed and switched my phone to ‘event mode’ so that every time I took a photo it automatically uploaded it straight to the event where all our photos, posts and video were being aggregated.
It’s not hard to see how Glass would do the same thing.
Consider Travmonkey.com. (This is the start of my #PleaseGoogleGivePaulDowAGlassToReview campaign.)
Paul Dow, Travmonkey’s founder, has been pioneering Live Blog Trips, where he or one of his team goes to a destination for a short break and live tweets his/her experiences with images posted on Instagram. It’s not unique. Four years ago Benji Lanyado used to base his ‘live’ TwiTrips for the Guardian newspaper on tweeted recommendations from his followers, and its a key element for most blog trips – ‘live’ tweeting while there, and then writing longer blog posts afterwards.
Imagine though, how much more seamless that trip might be if he “Glassed” it, running images, voice, video, synchronised with Google Maps into a public G+ Event. Interviews with guides. Q & A sessions in a live Google Hangout on Air.
It might seem that to juggle all that would require advanced ‘live’ broadcasting skills & technique, but watch out. Generation Z are already masters at using multiple platforms and devices simultaneously in a continuous online conversation. In a couple of years time they will take to this tech like ducks to water, making our current travel blogging generation look like plodding dinosaurs. The good ones will become rock stars… well, video stars… selling their ‘live’ content into mainstream media sites and web TV channels.
So, if you are a travel blogger and eager to develop your professional skills for the future, learn this phrase: “Ok Glass…”
(Except, if you are like me you won’t be able to get the image out of your mind of an early adopting American composer having conversations with himself! No matter. You’ll probably be able to personalise your Glass with its own name. So something along the lines of “Ok, DeMille, are you ready to take a close-up?”.)
At a slight tangent, here’s another prediction, drawn from some more loose strands…
- Google likes to be associated with active sports in its marketing.
- Glass’ biggest tech problem is size. Components, particularly batteries, have to be squeezed into a tiny ‘form factor’.
- Google is working with non-IT brands and manufacturers. (Eg. Warby Parker)
I think that the technology in Glass marks a step change in mobile tech. Not the seemless integration between geolocated apps and devices, but, as Mike Elgan puts it, the transition to mainstream wearable computing.
So it’s a safe bet that in the very near future we will see a range of Google branded physical products such as bicycle helmets, ski helmets and goggles, appearing. Maybe there will be combination products, paired up so that data from one is displayed on the other? Google Bikes & Trainers talking to Google Glass, Google Snowboards talking to Google Goggles. Google Cars… well, just talking… & throwing stuff up onto a windscreen HUD!
And maybe that would explain the launching of Google retail outlets, when at the moment they only have three models of Nexus and a Chromebook to sell!
Image: Google
Post Revisions:
- 26 February, 2013 @ 9:38 [Current Revision] by Alastair McKenzie
- 26 February, 2013 @ 9:34 by Alastair McKenzie
- 26 February, 2013 @ 9:31 by Alastair McKenzie
- 26 February, 2013 @ 9:31 by Alastair McKenzie
Been a bit quiet on travelllll.com recently bois!
Welcome back :)
I might be trapped in the blinders of my own ignorance, so apologies if I look really stupid in two years when everyone is broadcasting insanely popular live travel walk-throughs and Q&As and making loads of money off them.
But I just don’t see it – who is going to be watching these? Who is going to commit the time to viewing a full-on trip-by-proxy on the schedule of the broadcaster, not the viewer?
The latest TwiTrip from the Guardian is from spring 2011 – two years ago. It feels to me like media are moving more toward the reader and viewer choosing where and when they consume their content, rather than the other way around. People read blogs at work, on their phones, while we’re queueing, during ad breaks. I think there’s a danger of too much information being handed to readers/viewers, and not enough curation.
‘Imagine though, how much more seamless that trip might be if he “Glassed” it, running images, voice, video, synchronised with Google Maps into a public G+ Event. Interviews with guides. Q & A sessions in a live Google Hangout on Air’
This is an honest question: Who is going to watch this?
Not many ‘live’ for sure. As you say, it’s not going to fit their schedules. Some will dip in and out of the ‘live’ feed, but most will view the content, as they do now, as aggregated text,audio, photo and video content on the web.
Google live Hangouts are streamed through Youtube and saved automatically as Youtube videos (800 m unique users monthly, a quarter of them on mobile devices) which is how much of it will be viewed. There’s also a vast dormant audience of mainstream TV viewers who are about to find their new web-enabled TVs full of niche video content.
And generation-z will not only produce this kind of content, they’ll also consume it. Travel companies are already thinking about how they will engage in their realtime conversations on multiple platforms.
Much of it will probably be dross with few production values, but some ‘live’ travel presenters will rise to the top and become the highly influential travel media rockstars.
It’s not exclusive – text based travel writing/blogging will still be around – and it won’t happen tomorrow, but I think it’s coming.
(PS And yes, Benji’s Twitrips came & went ages ago. He’s been into all sorts of other techy stuff since then. I was just making the point, it’s not new)
I think if I was thinking about visiting a place, potentially I’d watch it… it doesn’t need to be live, it just needs to paint a picture of a trip and have an interesting angle to it.
For me it’s about providing transparency for users and inspiring them.
What I wanted to do with live blogging is to simplify my travel coverage for people who wanted to see what I was doing. I’ve often seen people travel and tweet photos of it, but there is usually no single page that I can access to see the whole coverage – articles, tweets, instagram photos, check-ins etc. I wanted to bring all the relevant aspects of Foursquare, twitter and instagram onto a single page in order to paint a picture of my trip as it happens… or even to view after.
When I’m about to travel somewhere I can ask for tips and recommendations for locals and those that have travelled there. These people are then engaged with what I’m doing on my trip so are likely to follow along with the live blogging. I can tap into their expertise by checking out the cool restaurant or bar that they’ve recommended… after all these people know the location far better than me.
I’ve also had many people follow along who are thinking about visiting these destinations.
I’ve found that these pages are often much more engaging with a time on page of anywhere between 6-14 minutes… huge compared to a standard text article.
I did a presentation on how to add value to a blog trip. Here I outlined that I think you need to do three things:
Simplifying – Making blog trip coverage as simple as possible so that non- bloggers can consume it. Social media coverage captured and presented in such a way that people can follow the trip and see all the aspects of your coverage.
Captivating – Producing content or the whole trip based on an interesting and intriguing angle. Potentially innovating by using new technology.
Engaging – Tapping into local knowledge of travel destinations to extract expert tips and information on a destination and using that to produce content that has expert knowledge to be consumed by non-bloggers.
http://www.travmonkey.com/blog/how-to-add-value-to-a-blog-trip-slides/
I think what Google has done with events is to bring content into one place, that is easy to consume… Glass would just be the tool with which you could generate that content. It doesn’t have to be live.
You’d be surprised how interesting and engaging this type of coverage can be in comparison to an article. If it wasn’t then I wouldn’t still be doing it.
Thanks for the great post Alastair. Really enjoyed the insights as I do a lot of destination marketing and help promote individual tourism businesses too here in Devon/the South West. Definitely feel we marketers should embrace Glass upon its UK launch and benefit from its possibilities just as much as travel writers. Have put some initial thoughts down on tumblr here: http://lexprandmarketing.tumblr.com/day/2013/02/26. Imagine Glass integration with Google Trekker…now that will be a thing of beauty
Thanks for the kind words, Lex.
You don’t need to wait for Glass. Augmented Reality is already well-developed on smartphones (See this article from two years ago. And if you want to find out where the ‘cutting edge’ is now, and where it’ll be in the future, follow the work of people like Barbara Neuhofer and Dimitrios Buhalis at Bournemouth University’s School of Tourism)
Oh, and find out if the tank at Starcross, or the lighthouse on the Hoe, has an aura.
It is certainly a great way to engage your viewer/reader, makes you wonder where the technology is going to stop? Great article and thanks for the info, have a great weekend ;-)