Project Glass Takes Social Media by Storm

The online world buzzed last week over what could be a major technological breakthrough in personal devices. On April 4, Google released a video previewing its planned augmented-reality glasses, or "Project Glass."

In the video, an unidentified user starts his day by checking his schedule and monitoring the weather by looking in the glasses. The glasses also inform him of a subway delay, provide walking directions to his destination, and help him with other small tasks that would currently be done through a smartphone. The man ends his day playing the ukulele for a lady friend who he is chatting with through the glasses. The reaction online was both instantaneous and voluminous. Project Glass became the top story on blogs for the week of April 2-6 and the No. 2 story on Twitter according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. But there were some differences in how bloggers and Twitter users responded. While tech bloggers were largely impressed by the potential of the device, they tempered that excitement with some concern about whether the glasses would work as well as advertised. (Google has not announced a release date for the product.) Twitter users seemed more unabashedly enthusiastic about the technology, sharing jokes and videos about Project Glass.