What is Glogging? Well, You May Soon Be Doing It


what is glogging

google glasses

Google Glass is Google’s computer that looks vaguely like eyeglasses.  Although there are no eyeglass lenses in Google Glass, they remind you of an eyeglass frame (see above). Glass is currently experimental and not yet available on the consumer market. Plans are being made to launch Glass to the public in 2014 — but some say it could happen in late 2013.

While Google Glass puts the Internet and many computer and smartphone features right in front of your face, it also can help you enhance certain business and marketing practices. That’s where the practice of Glogging comes in.

What is Glogging?

Glogging is the act of blogging or vlogging (video blogging) using Google Glass as a camera.  Think Glass + blogging = glogging.

With traditional vlogging, users might carry around a video camera to document their experiences, speaking into it all the while. Viewers can feel like they are in the room with the vlogger. It’s like a documentary.

With glogging, you get an even more personalized perspective.  Viewers literally can see what the glogger sees.   They see it as if through the glogger’s eyes. After all, the camera lens in Google Glass is right next to the glogger’s eye, perched on his or her head like eyeglasses.

Glogging puts viewers not just in the room, but in the glogger’s shoes, as this perspective shows:

google glass taking video

Google Glasses Recording

How Does Glogging Work?

When someone has Google Glass on, using either a button or voice command, the user can take photos or shoot video.  A tiny screen image appears above the eye, showing what the camera lens sees.

Glass users can look at what is in front of them. Or they can glance up and to the right slightly, to see what is on the little screen (see below).

google glass video

Google Glass Video Screen Photo via Google

One useful feature of Google Glass is its integration with Google+, Google’s social network.

Images or video footage taken using Glass are automatically added to the user’s private Google+ photo section. You can then choose to share the media or post to other sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Or you can embed the images or video into a longer blog post.

Glogging can even be live. Instead of completing a video, uploading it to Google+ and then sharing it, you could launch an instant Google+ Hangout right from Glass. Then you can share what you’re seeing live, as and when you’re seeing it.

How Can You Use Glogging For Business?

Glogging could be used for product reviews and demos.  Rather than a traditional overview or demo, with glogging you can deliver something that feels more spontaneous and puts the viewer “right there” like Andy Ihnatko did with this demo of Nokia’s new Lumia 1020 camera. In his video, you can clearly see the screen and how Ihnatko is working each of the camera’s functions.

If your company is releasing a new mobile app, for example, you could use glogging to easily show off all of the features without ever taking the camera off the phone screen. If you were filming a more traditional vlog, you might have to turn the phone screen toward you and away from the camera to press buttons within the app occasionally.  And then you would have to turn the phone back toward the camera to show off the next screen.  It would not seem nearly as “in the moment” as with glogging.

Glogging can also be used for things like tours, such as this one of Disneyland.  Imagine doing a walk-through of your manufacturing facility for prospective clients.  Or you could hold conversations with industry experts at a trade show or event.  You could even use glogging to give interactive presentations.

You can add text captions to a video, also.  For instance, you can add screen notes, or add a message to convert those viewing it into social followers.

google glass video add text

Google Glass “Add Text” Feature Video Still

Using Glass instead of a traditional camera gives you the ability to use both hands at all times rather than using one or both to hold the camera. Viewers can see directly from the point of view of the glogger.  

That way the person filming can easily point things out and narrate. Best of all, it can make users feel more like a part of the experience rather than just a bystander, as this kind of shot shows:

Google Glass Voice Command Screen Photo via Google

Though the cost for Glass is currently listed at  $1,500, it may be quite a bit cheaper when the device hits the consumer market. Some experts suggest that based on the price of components and other factors, the price will be much lower by the time Google Glass becomes widely available.

google glasses

Google Glass Photo via Google

So, while not yet widely available, Google Glass will likely soon be plentiful, and hopefully at a reasonable price.

Start thinking now about how you could use Google Glass videos in your business.

First Google Glass image above via Shutterstock. Others via Google.

23 Comments ▼

Annie Pilon Annie Pilon is a Senior Staff Writer for Small Business Trends, covering entrepreneur profiles, interviews, feature stories, community news and in-depth, expert-based guides. When she’s not writing she can be found exploring all that her home state of Michigan has to offer.

23 Reactions
  1. Glogging? Never heard of it til you mentioned it! It’s a nice fit though.

    I find it really interesting, but also a bit creepy at the same time. I’m not sure why I feel the latter.

    I wonder if it’ll be available in different colours and how easy it would be for someone who wears prescription glasses to wear.

  2. Technology is changing all the time, and incorporating Google Glass videos in your business is something doable in the distant future. First, you have blogging, then vlogging and then glogging. I think I will not be doing glogging at all due to its hefty price.

    • I’m sure there’ll be another type soon, perhaps zlogging or qlogging or something!

      You’re right – the price is pretty steep. I don’t see myself buying it either, but not just because of the price. It’s just not something I’d use myself, but I can definitely see how it can be of use to some people.

  3. Glogging??? Never heard of that term, but it sounds really interesting 🙂 I heard about Googling, but Glogging not at all..

    Kind Regards, Christine

  4. Please, let’s not call it “glogging.” It sounds like you’re puking up something unpleasant or drowning in a liquid that is particularly thick. 😉 As a fellow Glassmate, myself, I refer to the process of posting content via Glass as “Glassing”. It’s a much more pleasant word, in my opinion. I get where the word “glogging” comes from but it’s just going to be used as a target by critics. Like the word “blogging” was for years after the practice took off.

    As early users we have the power to create the glossary of terms people will use for years to come when they refer to Glass and Glassmates. Let’s try and make them terms that will help the face-based device (and others like it) to be accepted by the masses more easily. Thanks!

  5. Hopefully the prices will come to a reasonable state as soon as it’s launched. Google Glass has a lot of potential, but I’ve yet to see how much you can take it even further so we can make most of delivering content over the web.

  6. Wow that’s interesting. Now you can start sharing more than videos but the actual experience. This will definitely change the way people do blogging or vlogging. I’m excited. I just don’t know how much it will cost.

  7. Hi Annie,

    As a little bit of googling would reveal, “Glogging” and Glog are trademarks of Glogster EDU, and Glog stands for Graphical Blog, or Graphics Blog. So Google will not likely be adopting “Glogging” as a term for blogging with google glass.

    Letting your readers know about this may be helpful.

    Thanks from Glogster EDU.

    • Thanks for letting us know this, Really a Simple search query revealed alot of info about these glasses. I am also waiting for it, Hope price in my range.

  8. Hi Lloyd. Well, that’s a new one on us. We did do a search of the USPTO’s trademark database and didn’t find any mention of glogging. We are, of course, familiar with Glogster and the use of the term glogging as a contraction of graphical blogging. However, use of an alternate meaning does date back to at least 2002, when University of Toronto researcher and inventor Steve Mann used it as a contraction of the terms cyborg and weblog to describe a recording made with a wireless wearable webcam. See Mann’s paper at wearcam.org. Since then, tech writer Mike Elgan has reintroduced the term to refer to the experience of blogging with Google Glass. Other definitions of the term include the delightfully improbable “glamour jogging” popularized by a video on the Lady Bits YouTube channel and the Urban Dictionary definition “the act of telling a story repeatedly in an attempt to be funny.” Thanks for your comment.

  9. It’s certainly going to be a new magic for the video bloggers. I really like the idea and more importantly the concept of the pictures and videos getting automatically added to your Google profile that can be later shared on other platforms. No doubt that this Glogging will bring a new turn in video promotion of products and other stuffs. A very smart move from Google indeed.

  10. Gloggling and vlogging could be the next move in teaching. Mobile I-phones in the classroom is a definite move forward if controlled and focussed and the “Glass” would be a revolution and if tied into a smart-board would improve teaching techniques and method beyond present understanding. Laptops are cumbersome. But he only drawback is the funding of the technology, both hardware and software. Can the students afford it and should the schools not provide the expenses to ensure all students have an equal chance of access?

  11. It’s certainly going to be a new magic for the video bloggers. I really like the idea and more importantly the concept of the pictures and videos getting automatically added to your Google profile that can be later shared on other platforms.

  12. Glogging – It’s still a weird term … I would prefer ‘Glassing’

  13. Now that Google Glass has been pulled from developers, I guess we’ll have to find some new term to describe this phenomenon.

  14. Thanks for adding a new word in my dictionary Glogging.

  15. Glogging??? Never heard of that term, but it sounds really interesting 🙂 I heard about Googling, but Glogging not at all..

  16. Great innovation! I like the slim design, looks aesthetically pleasing. The last thing you want is a bulky head-mounted gadget.