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Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise

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Re: Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise

#221

Post by dragonwriter »

phpisthebest wrote: post #185
toyg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Netflix has a particular problem; maintaining series for more than a couple of seasons has always been hard in broadcasting. It's easier to spot now because people have complete visibility: instead of caring about a couple of series in key time slots, they can know care about all series, so it's more noticeable that most series die a sad death. Addressing off-ramps in a nicer way would be an innovation.…

2 "Seasons" of a netflix show is not even 1 season of broadcast... Most Broadcast shows run 20-24 Episodes per Season. Netflix is 10 at the most, some 6 episodes. per "season" That is part of their problem, and why the cancellations feel even more abrupt and why people do not want to invest time in them. it is hard to tell a compelling story in 6 episodes of TV. So if a netflix series get 2 seasons, 12 Episode. it is…

> 2 "Seasons" of a netflix show is not even 1 season of broadcast...

Yes, most streaming-first platforms use shorter seasons than is typical for US broadcast (but that was also often true of US cable, and is also true of, e.g., British broadcast.)

> That is part of their problem, and why the cancellations feel even more abrupt

Mid-season, especially first-season, cancellations on broadcast have always been a thing (as have soft-cancellations by moving—often multiple times in a season—to a less valued timeslot, especially when timeslots mattered more.)

Re: Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise

#222

Post by toyg »

mejutoco wrote: post #208
phpisthebest wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 "Seasons" of a netflix show is not even 1 season of broadcast... Most Broadcast shows run 20-24 Episodes per Season. Netflix is 10 at the most, some 6 episodes. per "season" That is part of their problem, and why the cancellations feel even more abrupt and why people do not want to invest time in them. it is hard to tell a compelling story in 6 episodes of TV. So if a netflix series get 2 seasons, 12 Episode. it is…

IMO the problem of Netflix is not how the split the shows or their duration, but their quality.

Yeah, I think that's the real issue. People complain about 6 episodes not being enough, but the truth is that a lot of those 6-8 episodes now feels like filler - probably because some constraints (ad cuts on scenes...) have disappeared, so writers feel emboldened. Not everything can be The Wire.

Re: Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise

#223

Post by jsnell »

onion2k wrote: post #218
aplusbi wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet that the majority of non-techies couldn't name a single discontinued Google product. Outside of the tech world Google still has a stellar reputation. Most people don't seem to care/know/notice any of the privacy issues, support issues or product continuation issues. So I think your statement has some merit for certain types of products - ones that are targeted at the tech crowd - but overall I don't think…

I would bet that the majority of non-techies couldn't name a single discontinued Google product. There are 283 products listed on Killed By Google. If you're right then Google must have a massive problem communicating with non-techies. What's the point in launching anything new if they're so bad at getting users?

Sure, that list has a bunch of items. Have you looked at what they are? Here's a random sample of five items from it:

1. YouTube for PS Vita - a YT app for hardware that's been discontinued. Nobody would know of this because the PS Vita was a tiny platform that Sony quickly abandoned; normal people did not own Vitas.

2. Postini - email security software that Google bought, stopped selling standalone, and integrated into GMail. Nobody would have heard of this because it was enterprise software, not consumer.

3. Gesture Search - a toy Android app for searching for contacts / apps with handwriting recognition rather than a virtual keyboard. Nobody would have heard of this because it's a tech demo solving a tiny problem that people just didn't have. But if people had wanted this kind of search, it would have been integrated to the OS.

4. Building Maker - software for making building models on Google Earth. Nobody would have heard of this since it was incredibly niche. How many people want to model buildings into Google Earth? 10k?

5. Google Schemer - some kind of location-based activity sharing. This does appear to be a legit consumer application, though not one I'd heard of.

Re: Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise

#224

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

phpisthebest wrote: post #185
toyg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Netflix has a particular problem; maintaining series for more than a couple of seasons has always been hard in broadcasting. It's easier to spot now because people have complete visibility: instead of caring about a couple of series in key time slots, they can know care about all series, so it's more noticeable that most series die a sad death. Addressing off-ramps in a nicer way would be an innovation.…

2 "Seasons" of a netflix show is not even 1 season of broadcast... Most Broadcast shows run 20-24 Episodes per Season. Netflix is 10 at the most, some 6 episodes. per "season" That is part of their problem, and why the cancellations feel even more abrupt and why people do not want to invest time in them. it is hard to tell a compelling story in 6 episodes of TV. So if a netflix series get 2 seasons, 12 Episode. it is…

> So if a netflix series get 2 seasons, 12 Episode. it is just starting

True Detective season one: 8 episodes and done => one of the most acclaimed TV shows in many years.

Mare of Easttown: 7 episodes and done => one of the most acclaimed TV shows in many years

If you make actual stories instead of trying to create ongoing scenarios, you can hit it out of the park in less than 10 episodes.

Re: Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise

#225

Post by autokad »

toyg wrote: post #154
phpisthebest wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google will never get a new service to a billion users right now They have the netflix problem (or does nexflix have the Google problem) they have killed off soo many projects that no one want to invest their time into new ones unless they reach the multi-year stage, and they can not reach the multi-year stage unless they get millions of users... It is a catch 22, and neither company seems to want to address or even…

I don't think Netflix has a particular problem; maintaining series for more than a couple of seasons has always been hard in broadcasting. It's easier to spot now because people have complete visibility: instead of caring about a couple of series in key time slots, they can know care about all series, so it's more noticeable that most series die a sad death. Addressing off-ramps in a nicer way would be an innovation.…

when I was doing research on ratings, one thing I noticed: no matter how popular or unpopular a show, its an almost certainty that the number of viewers viewing something goes down over time.

The first season almost always has more viewers than season 2, season 2 almost always has more viewers than season 3. The only real difference between the extremely popular shows is that the decrease from season to season is not as pronounced, but its still there.

I was like wow, I'm surprised they even bother with season 2s.

Re: Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise

#226

Post by toyg »

gowld wrote: post #215
hotpotamus wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The joke I've heard is "six seasons and a movie" that goes back to broadcast TV series. Something about contracts running six years, so costs balloon after that, and a one-time movie is much easier to schedule a group of actors for. I've long wondered why Netflix doesn't do it more often. I'm sore about the cancellation of "Santa Clarita Diet" and I think it could easily be wrapped up in a movie.

There's no 6-season cutoff. It was just an estimate of a successful show.

The cutoff is 100 episodes, which traditionally is a magic number for US syndication deals. An ongoing series with 100 episodes under its belt will get a good deal for everyone involved.

Most traditional series will hit that number in 5 seasons, but obviously nobody wants to make a deal for a dead series; so you produce season 6 too, to make it palatable. By this point, however, your talent bill has probably grown significantly, so making new seasons is less and less profitable - as well as narratively hard. So you pull the plug and start afresh.

Re: Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise

#227

Post by rvz »

908B64B197 wrote: post #172
rvz wrote: post #86

Not even a SINGLE mention of North glasses in this thread. [0] Highly likely the reason for closing this down since they already have the IP and technology. So why would Google want to run two teams (Glass and North) in parallel when they can discontinue Glass and merge both teams into one? It would be news if they closed down their newly acquired AR glasses by North [1], but they are still in the AR glasses race. [0…

North is really a footnote. It acquired the Intel Vaunt [0] tech and patents and tried to bring it to market[1]. It failed to do so and was acquired for a little bit less than it raised [2], suggesting Google only valued the patents. The company failed to retain talent and trimmed it's workforce aggressively before the acquisition. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/5/16966530/intel-vaunt-smart... [1] https://www.th…

My point is, Google Glass has been replaced by North's AR glasses technology. Whatever happened to North when it was an independent business is not Google's problem.

It would be a total failure for Google if they discontinued all their AR glasses products; signalling their exit from the AR glasses race in general. Thanks to that acquisition, that is not the case.

Re: Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise

#228

Post by autokad »

bla3 wrote: post #79
throwaw12 wrote: post #25

At this point, I think issue is not about products Google build, it is about how Google put their incentives in place. - Build new shiny thing -> promoted - Support shiny thing -> it's not difficult, everyone can do it This type of culture is influencing future direction of Google products, they put together awesome team, solve problem and get from 0 to 1, then team moves on, others don't have incentive to make 1 to…

I think this is both obsolete and subtly wrong. Big corps want products with global impact. When a product is new, it's evaluated for its potential. When it's been around for a while, it's evaluated on how well its growth is matching the estimated impact. Eventually, growth has stopped. If the product lands at an active base of a billion users or so, it's a success and people definitely can make a career out of maint…

all the incentives for promotion or getting a high rating is on creating a new product that has cross team impact. Even if your new product improves your team / current product, No - that doesnt have cross team impact, no promotion / high rating for you.

There are exceptions, but those are outliers, not the norm. so as an individual, you have to do what's best for you - that means don't take your chances at improving an existing product, make something new and force other teams to use it.

Re: Google discontinues Google Glass for enterprise

#229

Post by mustacheemperor »

bborud wrote: post #46

I wish they had spun it off so it wouldn't just have died within Google. It seems that any project that isn't wildly popular is just starved of talent inside Google. Outside Google with a little bit of money and a dedicated team, I don't see why this couldn't have been a success. What I would really like was a product that was developed to be affordable, fairly open so you can easily integrate it into your own system…

> Outside Google with a little bit of money and a dedicated team, I don't see why this couldn't have been a success.

Fortunately, dedicated teams outside of google have built similar products and been much more successful in the market.

I think that Vuzix[0] or Realware[1] might have exactly what you need: a rugged head-worn camera and lightweight 2D display/hud that can stream video/audio/files over the internet. They're in use today for use cases just like what you describe and are definitely glove-friendly.

If you need 3D interactivity/perception, it's a more complex case, but there's products for that too using hardware like the HoloLens or iOS pro devices.

[0]https://www.vuzix.com/ [1]https://www.realwear.com/

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