Google is nearing a consumer launch of what will be the first wearable mobile device. Google Glass, which a year ago was still sci-fi speculation, will be available to a select 8,000 consumers any day now. Aside from fashion and design concerns (of which there are many), the buzz around Glass is what it will do for–and to–the network.
Get Elastic recently speculated on some of the ways Google Glass may prove to be disruptive–not a disruptive device, but a device that hosts disruptive services. Quoting David Chiu:
The disruptive part will be the evolution/creation of digital products and services which provide value-adds that weren’t previously practical without that specific kind of screen (PC, laptop, television, tablet, mobile, and now wearable).
One of those value-adds is search. Google already offers image capture search in its mobile app, but Glass may go a few steps further by combining search functionality with Google’s databases and a predictive decision engine to enable a user to basically just look at a product they’re interested in, then add it to a virtual cart and purchase within seconds.
More disruptive than that is Glass’s potential to be platform agnostic: rather than requiring a native operating system and native apps, Glass would rely on apps in the cloud. Such a shift would change the way consumers interact with the currently browser-based Internet.
We think it’s too early to start throwing the term “g-commerce” around. But Google is serious enough about making Glass a viable consumer product that the company will be opening retail stores within the year, it’s rumored.
Read more about Google Glass’s disruptive potential at getelastic.com.
