Imagine one of your favorite memories! What if you could go back and see that memory the way you experienced? That’s why Spectacles was build. For the past few years Snapchat has been working on a totally new type of camera!
Spectacles are sunglasses with an integrated video camera that makes it easy to create Memories. It is one of the smallest wireless video cameras in the world, capable of taking a day’s worth of Snaps on a single charge, integrated into a fun pair of sunglasses. Spectacles connect directly to Snapchat via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and transfer your Memories directly into the app in our brand new circular video format. Circular video plays full screen on any device, in any orientation, and captures the human perspective with a 115 degree field of view (Team Snap, 2016).
Five days ago Snapchat changed their brand name into Snap Inc. The company decided they needed a name that goes beyond just one product, without losing the familiarity and fun of the brand. So they decided to drop the “chat” and go with Snap Inc (Evan, 2016). Remarkably, Snap Inc announced the development of the Spectacles the exact same day. Smart move, don’t you think?
When a company makes a major change to its brand or image, any number of things can happen. Loyal users may reject the change — as happened when Coca-Cola tried to introduce “New Coke” in one of the worst marketing disasters in history (Demers, 2016).
As you may know, Google introduced the Google Glass. These are glasses that offer an reality experience by using visual, audio and location-based inputs to provide users with relevant information.
Although Spectacles is “just” a simple hands-free camera rather than some advanced reality system, Snap Inc isn’t repeating the same mistakes of the Google Glass (Wilson, 2016). The Google Glass was hideous and cyborgian. I think we can all agree on that? While it tried so hard not to be.
Regarding to the wearable videotaping glasses of Snap Inc, would this commend itself to all or at least most human beings? Will the Spectacles be an instant hit? Do you see yourself wearing the Spectacles?
With the introduction of the Spectacles and the brand new company name, I believe that Snap Inc is definitely on the right track and will continue to grow even further in the future!
References
Demers, J. (2016), The Marketing Genius Behind Snapchat’s Name Change, https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/283020
Newsdesk (2016), You Can Now Wear N’ Snap Videos With SnapChat Glasses “Spectacles” http://pageone.ph/you-can-now-wear-n-snap-videos-with-snapchats-glasses-spectacles/
Team snap. (2016), Introducing Spectacles! https://www.snap.com/news/
Wilson, M. (2016), Snapchat’s New Glasses Are As Silly As Snapchat (And That’s Why They’ll Be A Hit), https://www.fastcodesign.com/3064078/snapchats-new-glasses-are-as-silly-as-snapchat-and-thats-why-theyll-be-a-hit
Dear Daniëlle, thank you for your post! To answer your question, I do not think I would buy the spectacles (yet). To me, I like snapchat as it is, and I do not like wearing glasses. Of course, these are both personal preferences. Would you buy them? To be honest, I do not think they will be an instant hit, but I do think it is smart of Snapchat / Snap inc. to change their brandname and expand their market, especially since Instagram also started introducing ‘Stories’. I am very curious to see if people will be walking around with Spectacles any time soon 🙂
Hey Danielle, thank you for the post! This is quite an interesting product and I have never heard of it before, but I must say I would be interested. That is, if the costs for a spectacle would be reasonable. I think having the camera at the height of your eyes would make video’d memories a lot nicer, they simply look where you are looking without any awkward arm or (likely) shaky movements. Imagine going to a festival or staring into the ocean and actually pretending youre back in that moment. Sure, you can try to get the same feeling by taking a video on your smartphone but if Snapchat or Inc actually delivers a good product for a decent price… I think they could capture the hearts of a lot of festival visitors and the like. I think Google just wanted to much at the same time for a market that was not ready yet. Personally, I dont see the value Google Glasses could have added… a video that can take you back to your favorite holiday or hangout with friends, Ill take that. However, I dont think that changing the brand/company name has any major direct effect in this case. Its kind of like the first weeks after getting married: you have different name then but it takes time getting used to for you and all others around you. I could even imagine people to still refer to the app on their phones as SnapChat developed by SnapChat and Spectacles developed by Snap Inc. Personally, I read the rationale for their name change but from my point of view continuing under SnapChat regardless of the product range would have been just fine (unless the speactacle launch fails, then the name SnapChat remains unblemished).
Hi Danielle,
I was waiting for someone to write something about this major news! Thanks for posting your thoughts.
I would like to disagree with your prediction “Snap Inc is definitely on the right track”. Although wearable-tech is trendy right now (e.g. Fitbit), Spectacles’ one-size-fits-all model just doesn’t seem to make the cut. People with different face shapes require different sunglasses styles. It would be hard to convince the fashionistas youths to spend $129 on something that only comes in one size. with its major user base lies between 18-24 year-old, I’m not sure if Snap Inc is on the right track with marketing the bright, fun Spectacles to this age group.
Google Glass was hideous according to you, but Spectacles seems obnoxious and too “in-your-face”. That leads me to the next point: privacy concern. Spectacles makes it easier for users to record videos, but people around the users probably won’t be comfortable with the fact that they might be filmed any second.
I do admire how Snap Inc is expanding to hardware territory. But moving away from its core product can be daunting and dangerous. I can’t wait to see how Snap Inc’s future looks like.
Let me know what you think!
Hey Daniëlle, thanks for your post!
However you say that Spectacles won’t be the a failure as Google Glass, I still wonder if there is a market for Spectacles.
One big reason for the failure of Google Glass was that they were not able to focus on the right market. I would think that Spectacles have even less features than Google Glass and thus would also be a failure as it is focusing on the same market where Google Glass failed.
Hi Daniëlle, thank you for writing your blog, it was an interesting read! I really liked it, because I am a very big fan of Snapchat, or Snap as it is called right now. I use it a lot and I heard about some of the changes, like the change of its name. However I didn’t know that they were starting with the development of these glasses.
To answer your question: “Do you see yourself wearing these Spectacles?” I think this very much depends on the appearance of the sunglasses, as was your point of view on why the Google Glasses weren’t a succes.
Together with the appearance of the glasses, I think that the extra functionality of the sunglasses shouldn’t bother the user. So, when the sunglasses have a nice appearance and the functionality wouldn’t bother me, then I would definitely buy these glasses.
Only imagine that all the moments when you were too late to take a picture, could be recorded by these sunglasses, you could send the world a lot of funny and entertaining pictures and movies!