COM grad pioneers new technology at Google

Google wants to play a leading role in VR through technologies such as Cardboard, which was released in 2014. And it’s part of Nooka Jones’ job to figure out how to make that happen. Jones (’10) is marketing manager and team lead at Google Creative Lab, a think tank in the company’s marketing division. His job includes coming up with ideas and names for new products, conducting marketing exercises to inspire engineers’ development of Google technologies and identifying emerging industries for the company to work in.

Jones’ latest project is Jump, a three-part technology representing a big step forward in VR filmmaking. The first part is a rig, about 11.6 inches in diameter, of 16 cameras arranged in a circle that enables users to shoot VR video. Jump also includes software that puts the footage together in high resolution, and a player for viewing (YouTube currently hosts the videos). Part of the reason there hasn’t been much VR content for consumers until now is that filmmakers have had to cobble together their own VR rigs. Jump is expected to make VR filmmaking easier and more widespread. Jones says his team’s involvement in Jump touches on areas such as branding and communication, product design and user experience. They created the “bumper”—the brand tag (like the MGM lion, says Jones) that precedes every Jump film—and helped come up with the name Jump.

“It’s very early on, and there are only some exclusive partners that will have [Jump] for a bit, but we’re really excited about it,” says the 28-year-old Jones, whom Forbes named one of 30 Under 30 in Marketing and Advertising in 2015. “I think it shows huge potential in where this industry is going.”