As The Atlantic Wire’s Rebecca Greenfield put it, “Sergey Brin’s Masculinity is Threatened by Smartphones.” Calling them “emasculating,” he went on to tout the amazingness of wearing a computer on your face instead — specifically, the upcoming Google Glass, which will supposedly cost about $1,500 and will let you record video and see augmented reality overlays. Sort of like what your $150 smartphone can do, except you don’t have to get it out of your pocket.
It’s kind of an embarrassment for Google, to debut something that it’s clear that few people want. But then, unlike Apple, Google doesn’t mostly sell to individual buyers — nearly all of its money comes from its advertising. So Google’s “consumer” products come in two varieties: Stuff designed to make you share more info and thus be more susceptible to ads (like Google+), and ostensibly cool stuff that was built on a whim, or because someone at Google thought it’s what the future should be like. It doesn’t usually end well for this last kind of product … and it doesn’t always turn out well for the first kind, either.
Here’s a look at a few of both!
The Nexus Q
Have a look at Google’s Nexus device page. In between the Nexus tablets and smartphones on display, see if you can find the Nexus Q. That’s right, you can’t anymore; and if you’re able to somehow dig up the old link and visit it, you’ll find out that “Nexus Q is no longer available for sale.” It’s like the thing never existed.
What was it? Well, its product page describes it as “The first social streaming media player.” What that basically amounts to is it’s a little orb you plug into your speakers and TV, and now anyone in the room can use their Android smartphone or tablet to set it to play stuff from YouTube or Google Music. Did I mention it cost $299? If you aren’t sure why anyone would want to pay that much for something that duplicates features their other devices have, now you know why it didn’t catch on.
Google Buzz
It’s the social network you may have become a member of without knowing it. Easy to get into, hard to get out of, it was sprung on millions of Gmail users back in 2010, and its confusing explanations made a lot of people’s personal stuff public all of a sudden. Google discontinued Buzz in late 2011, and ended up making Google+ instead, since its execs don’t like that it can’t index or serve ads on Facebook.
Google Wave
It was sort of like Skype … and Twitter … and Wikipedia. Or something. No one was really sure what Google Wave was, sometimes even after trying it out. It was supposed to revolutionize everything, but instead it ended up getting the plug pulled too.
