Thread by @NiclasJ

1/ Story/narrative time! I can share a unique perspective around the recent "Rayban Stories" Facebook smartglasses release. I've taken hundreds of thousands of photos (and some video clips) using a wearable, (inconspicuous) automatic camera for 3 years (

https://twitter.com/niclasj/status/1435960154814488579?s=21

)

2/ From 2012 to its demise in 2016, I did sales/biz dev/"special projects" at @getnarrative, a startup that launched its Kickstarter juuust in the wake of the first Google Glass announcement: kickstarter.com/projects/marti…

3/ For more context, the NSA Prism news (Snowden's reveal of state surveillance) and the first season of Black Mirror (including this episode: ) happened around our launch. instagram.com/p/mu5jyEOPgV/

4/ The "hardware is hard" notion was something our team learned the hard way, as our KS delivery of the 1st gen Narrative Clip was delayed from our initially promised "February 2013" to finally take place in January 2014.

5/ My role entailed social media response. I monitored and engaged in all channels. Lots to learn from our audience's attitude in the KS comments: kickstarter.com/projects/marti… (skim past the support stuff!)

6/ I also talked to thousands of people at professional and consumer tradeshows, from CES to Gadget Show to Wearable Tech conferences and deeper industry meets. As soon as we had pre-production units, I started wearing one privately.

7/ Ppl definitely had conflicting emotions about THE IDEA of it. "Cool but creepy" was a regular sentiment in conversations. But using it, people were mostly intrigued by a wonder of chance about the (automatedly) captured photos. 1 every 30 seconds, by default.

8/ It was a bold design decision to have no buttons on the camera - not even an on/off switch! Unplug from charger, and it took photos at a set rate, until battery ran out or put in pocket (light sensitive). If you saw the lens, it saw you.

9/ This prompted/forced a mindful behavior for the wearer. Even if the purpose was "lifelogging", one simply NEEDED to put it away at times like bathroom visits, many professional settings, going through TSA... thenextweb.com/news/airport-s…

10/ ... because, while inconspicuous to bystanders in public settings like out on town, at parties, concerts, etc, its design clearly communicated "camera lens" in 1-1 social interactions.

11/ Sure, you could be aggressive and claim your citizen rights to document your point of view even when challenged - if you were a confrontational asshole-type person. Great, now other people had a way to quickly find out that and avoid you!

12/ It was also important that nothing went straight from the camera to be externally shared. The companion app segmented, organized, and highlighted full days of captures (2000+ photos/day when worn for 16 hours!), keeping photos secure and private.

13/ We learned a lot about privacy and the right/importance of documenting your life, not least through involvement with the #quantifiedself movement online and at conferences. We even produced a documentary about the community: "Lifeloggers"

14/ Still a great primer to quantified self, it features pioneers like Gordon Bell from Microsoft (gordonbell.azurewebsites.net), wearable computing gurus @thadstarner and @hydraulist. Available at vimeo.com/61947763 for posterity :)

15/ Steve Mann wrote the important paper "Veillance and Reciprocal Transparency: Surveillance versus Sousveillance, AR Glass, Lifeglogging, and Wearable Computing", which provides necessary terminology and historical context for this whole discourse: wearcam.org/veillance/veil…

16/ The image quality of our camera was not very good, esp. in low light. Angling the non-wideangle lens resting against the chest to not point at the sky was... challenging. instagram.com/p/l2WghZOPju/ Miniaturizing the tech to glasses size was a dream,

17/ and one of our most requested "upgrades" from our customers, but not achievable to us then. (And not in line with the original product vision, which arguably adapted throughout the company lifespan from 2012-2016)

18/ I have saved a lot of valuable photos from the Narrative "era", and shared some publicly. Nature vistas, street photos from travels, portrait shots from conferences, family moments to look back and cherish... instagram.com/p/ypCLvvOPvV/ instagram.com/p/_cBb6KOPi6/

19/ I have also happily discarded +100,000 repetitive shots of everyday stuff. Capturing office life and commutes gets old really quick. But collecting data as a "discipline" and mindfully reviewing my own data, including geo and activity tracking from other apps...

20/ also provided insights and motivated me to more fun everyday activities - be it as small as a novel route around the neighborhood for an evening walk. Not to mention realizing what can be inferred from tracking sensors already "worn" by everyone - in their phones.

21/ This aspect has been dug into by these researchers:

https://twitter.com/JL_Kroger/status/1420681035617116163

for just the accelerometer data. Looking forward to the future of VR/AR, more concerningly, here's their paper on inferences from eye-tracking data:

https://twitter.com/JL_Kroger/status/1392789775569018881

22/ To conclude and tie this back to Facebook/Ray-Ban Stories and concerns/cautions for the inevitable XR future, I want to share a couple of key learnings, suggestions, and projections.

23/ Tech is a driving force that changes behavior - humans are masters of adaption, and will adopt behavior that has a perceived net beneficial effect. In extreme cases, regulations are needed to rein in companies whose actions are/can be damaging...

24/ Ownership of data was a central issue at @getnarrative - the hardware content was secure, we had an option to do a local photo dump via USB, and the companion app was first and foremost a private lifelog. For bystanders, the hw design prompted mindful user behavior.

25/ Ray-Ban Stories seems to do a lot of things right, with the same user instructions to be aware of and respectful to your surroundings, etc. BUT signaling "is it on or off" could be clearer. The LED light should be always on if the glasses are on...

26/ instead of on capture only (and blink/indicate when recording/taking photos). It's still subtle, but wd encourage wearers to more actively turn it off when in situations where usage is inappropriate. Yup, it could mean 3 states: "off, audio-only, audio + shooting".

27/ The companion View app is a (so far missed) opportunity for Fb to introduce "crypto/decentralized sharing" as an additional option to the external sharing function.Fb obviously making crypto moves in preparation for their transition into the metaverse:

https://twitter.com/APompliano/status/1433031883248574475

28/ Portability of digital objects is key to that, and View could have "slid in" an interesting way to create an inner circle of family/close friends with whom the user could share videos/photos not meant for the public to see - or for Fb to be able to access.

29/ As a pretty bare-bones release, again, I think Stories is on an interesting path.

https://twitter.com/NiclasJ/status/1436044669398491138

It's exploring one vector towards "AR glasses/metaverse"... but so is Quest 2, Spark AR, Portal, and Project Aria.

30/ All of these initiatives of Fb's are so far discrete FRL projects, and this to me illustrates an interesting strategy difference compared to Apple. Apple is rumored to be releasing a passthrough mixed reality headset, as their first stepping stone towards AR glasses.

31/ Many seem to think that Fb is evolving Quest to do the same - that they'll add color-passthrough and fuller AR capabilities in future Quest generations. I don't. Quest will stay relevant as a VR-native product line with only experimental/rudimentary "AR-ish" functionality...

32/ and will co-exist with eventual Fb AR glasses, whereas the Stories product line will likely be abandoned once AR glasses are a reality.

(In summary, Fb has a more diversified XR strategy than Apple.)

33/ Lastly, back to Stories. With the retail distribution of Ray-Ban, Fb taps into a superpower they haven't had before. (BUT I can't get them here in Sweden yet.)

What are their sales goals - wd Ray-Ban really be on board if not for the prospects of massive volumes?

34/ Unlike what we did with Narrative, Stories is an aggressively social product. Wearing them is an extroverted fashion statement, and I'm sure we'll see ad campaigns with "day in the life of" influencers that let us vicariously hang out with their influencer friends.

35/ But once people buy them, I hope they experience the same benefit that was the core of Narrative - to realize that oftentimes the small, fleeting moments are the ones we cherish the most afterward. That time well-lived is also time well spent re-lived.

36/ End of thread! If you've read this far, AMA I guess? Outro: by @lucasrizzotto

And hi @okalmaru @martinkallstrom @webpal - I enjoyed this retrospect on the good old Narrative times :)