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TechGoogle

This is where Google says Glass went all wrong

By
Ben Geier
Ben Geier
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By
Ben Geier
Ben Geier
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 17, 2015, 4:54 PM ET
Photo: Ole Spata/AFP/Getty

The leader of the Google labs that gave life to the Google Glass smart glasses is coming clean about where the program went wrong.

Google X lead Astro Teller said at the South By Southwest Interactive festival Tuesday that the company put too much emphasis on the “Explorer” program, which got the smart glasses in the hands of early adopters, tech press and gadget evangelists. Teller said the Explorer program itself was a good idea, but it put “too much attention” on Google Glass before it was truly ready for primetime.

Teller was pretty relaxed about the mistake, though.

From Mashable:

“We made one really great decision, and one not so great,” explained Astro Teller, the head of Google X division where Glass was conceived and managed, to a packed ballroom at SXSW Interactive. “The great decision was to do the Explorer program. The thing that we did not do well is that we allowed, and sometimes even encouraged, too much attention to the program.”

Google (GOOG) posted revenue of $18.1 billion in its most recent quarterly earnings.

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