The Near-sighted and the Far-sighted

Here's a post from Booodl's internal blog from last week I thought worth sharing

The biggest news this last week in tech was probably Facebook's acquisition of Oculus. (Fast Company's take. The Economist's)

Somewhat overlooked, but with a far greater likely impact in the short term, was Google's announcement of a strategic alliance with Luxottica. The Luxottica group includes eyewear brands such as Ray Ban and Oakley (these two brands were named as the focus of the strategic alliance).

The two pieces of news are very much related.

Mark Zuckerberg's comments suggest that the Oculus purchase is at least as much about AR as it is VR "Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate" Sounds like much more than just gaming.

In the Game of Eyeballs that is the consumer internet meta-monopoly* the closest to the customer wins, and it's not a stretch to imagine that HUD wearables could usurp smartphones.

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In other news, there's the announcement that Twitter is likely to abandon hashtags and @replies

@replies are rather cranky and anachronistic, I agree 100% with ditching them.

But hashtags?

There are at least three reasons that abandoning hashtags is a really bad idea for Twitter.

1. Users actually like an in-joke, a shared meme, a idiosyncracy. To an extent, learning something new is perceived value. Knowing and using hashtags makes users feel more important.
2. Hashtags encourage users to create more content and express themselves. Said it all in a sentence? Why leave it there? Add a pithy hashtag. Be funny, be clever. A hashtag can be a wink or a punchline. Some users have become adept at using hashtags to comic, droll or dramatic effect.
3. There's brand equity, even cultural equity in hashtags (see Fallon and JT below). Why gift that all to Instagram?
   

_{*(Google has an effective monopoly on connecting us with information, Facebook has an effective monopoly on connecting us with people, either knows they could win the lot if they play their cards right - and lose if they play them wrong or do nothing)}