Last month Sergey Brin took to the stage for a Google Glass TED talk. Reports of Brin’s 13 minute talk were readily available on the web, but TED never released a video. Why? Today Brin’s Google Glass TED talk video has finally hit the web, but not through any official source. A YouTube channel called ‘tedleaks’, which also hosts a controversial TED talk by Sarah Silverman which was never posted, is responsible for making the video available.
Why Ban Sergey Brin’s Google Glass TED Talk?
So why can’t you find Sergey Brin’s Google Glass TED talk on TED.com or the official TEDtalksDirector YouTube account?
Brian S. Hall of ReadWriteWeb, who called the talk “pure promotion” might have some hints to offer. He wonders whether or not TED was the right place for a Google Glass talk which didn’t quite speak to TED’s mission.
Sergey Brin’s Google Glass presentation at last week’s TED2013 conference came off as little more than a product pitch. Wearing his “Google Glass” throughout the presentation, Brin begins by noting that “when we (Brin and Larry Page) started Google 15 years ago, my vision was that information would come to you as you need it. You wouldn’t have to search query at all.”
The implication to all in attendance at TED2013 was clear: Google Glass delivers on the lofty Google vision. Is that the right approach for the TED Conferences?
For the most part I agree, but maybe not for the reasons you suspect.
I think Google Glass, and similar devices, has significant things to offer the world. It has the potential to change how we communicate with computers and with each other. If Brin had crafted his Google Glass TED talk to explain the ways that such devices might change our lives, it would have made for a much better talk, and one that I would have been happy to see up there on stage.
In its current form though, the Google Glass TED talk fell flat. We saw nothing new about Glass, and there was very little info about the impact the device would have. Maybe Brin was just being humble?
What do you think, should this talk have gone up on TED.com like all the others?
