Instaglasses from Instagram. This has the potential to replace smartphones. Smartglasses.

You'll remember the concept behind "google goggles" http://streamabout.blogspot.ie/2012/04/google-goggles-apple-fiddles.html in April of this year.

And now we have Instaglasses which is the Instagram version.

Designed by German Markus Gerke, they include a 5 mega pixel camera and (I presume) some web access allowing you to take pics, run them through Instagram and post. So you capture the world as you go. A camera on your head. They'll also soften your view of the world and can actually make Instagram's Mark Zuckerberg look angelic.

Possibly video won't be far behind either, dramatically allowing Instagram to venture into the world of video-sharing. Now that would be spectacular for Instagram and start to make sense of The Facebook 1bn acquisition. In fact, you could stream live from the glasses and actually "follow" people in real time visually. So one better than Twitter because this way you'll see what the celebrity sees.

Not unlike Google Goggles, they're a bit of a dream, a prototype for now, but signify the way that Social Media owners are looking at new content delivery systems outside of mobile. If you own the delivery system, you own the world.

Imagine for example, we all had Instaglasses, then we'd all use Instagram and the traffic stats would explode. Importantly too, these glasses are very cool. Or if we had YouTube glasses, we'd all be video-ing onto youtube.


This isn't a flight of fancy but a hard nosed business way to get consumers using more Social and in this case, using more of Instagram. If glasses developed, there's no reason why they couldn't become smartphones. Say using Facetime or Skype, you can make that person-to-person call and see them with your glasses as you talk. Why not?


Other delivery system ideas have included in-car projection directly onto your windscreen where you can see all your tweets/posts etc. Watches too have been thought of.

The accessibility of Social through easy delivery whether by glasses/watches/phones whatever, will enhance its growth. The problem with the surge in smartphone ownership (driven in turn by the need for consumers to have access online) is that the smartphone owner dictates who has access to it.


So if, as they are, Samsung continue to dominant the mobile handset space, they'll become a player in allowing/denying access to their platform. Iphone 4 and 5 deals with embedding Twitter and Facebook into their operating system (OS) is typical of this "ownership". http://streamabout.blogspot.ie/2012/06/apple-teams-with-facebook-tim-cook.html
 
You want to use our smartphones to reach your audience? How much? Exactly as the App store works.


Whereas, on the other hand, if there's other delivery systems (such as glasses), that issue dissipates. Instaglasses is another good indication of that thinking.

Expect something like them to be in the stores.

Expect to be wearing them.

Expect a surge in smartglasses.

This is going to be huge.