Google Glass's Big Day, Retail's Reboot, and Other News You Need to Know

DEATH OF THE SALESMEN — As an industry, retail is doing just fine: it just had its best month in two years, and has added a million jobs since 2010. But a seismic shift is underway, The Atlantic reports, which means there will be less jobs in fewer kinds of retail establishments. The two big reasons, writes Derek Thompson? Technology has helped make selling more efficient. Largely because of the growth of e-commerce — which means fewer sweater folders — sales per employee has more than doubled in the past two decades. "Call it the Amazon Effect," Thompson writes.

And then there's the Walmart Effect. As I've reported, one Walmart worker replaces about 1.4 local retail workers, so that a county sees about 150 fewer jobs in the years after a Walmart opens its doors.

All this is great for buyers, not so much for workers. "For consumers, there's never been a better time to buy stuff. It's not such a happy story for the people on the shopping floor and behind the counters."

_____

THE PAY GAP — The AFL-CIO's annual report on CEO versus worker pay is in, and it's a mixed bag kind of thing. Some pundits will focus on the fact that the pay gap multiple declined year over year. Others might dwell on the fact that "average" CEOs still make 331 times what "average" workers. The numbers:

The union group said the average CEO’s pay last year was $11.7 million, or 331 times the average U.S. worker’s annual pay of $35,293. That’s down from a ratio of 354 in 2012, when average CEO pay was $12.3 million, according to the AFL-CIO.

What does this actually mean? Not much, executive compensation consultant Todd Sirras tells the Atlantic Journal-Constitution, because there is so much apples-to-oranges comparison in such a broad generalization. "It will be interesting, but it won’t help anybody make decisions," he said. "It will make headlines.”

_____

A GLASS MENAGERIE — Google's one-day sale of Glass to the masses was a success, per the company. But it's hard to actually know, ZDNet writes, because there is no definition of success — and no numbers to assess.

From an update the Glass team gave on Tuesday, it appears that the 'cotton white' edition did actually sell out during the sale. However, there was no word on how the other shades of Glass, which include sky, charcoal, shale, and tangerine, fared. Google hasn't said how many Glass sets were available during the sale in total, so it's difficult to say how much of a success the one-day event really was.

Influencer Shane Snow sees plenty of potential niche use cases, but not of lot of mass appeal. As a mass-market consumer item in the nascent (read: unproven) wearables niche, $1,500 is a lot of coin for something that is at best perceived as a nice-to-have and at worst a What-do-I-need-that-for? True, that's what many said about the iPad. But Glass isn't creating a market — it's pushing the boundaries of an as-yet undefined space that is widely assumed will be dominated by smartwatches. So is Google really aiming for "a wider consumer launch later in 2014" — or, as at least one person thinks (me), is this tech just a piece of a big puzzle for world domination that also somehow involves drones, balloons, self-driving cars, modular phones, voice recognition and, yes, even smartwatches? Does Google want to be the big-time hardware business again after that Motorola Mobility experience? Is Google's sudden interest in Washington lobbying a coincidence? If I suddenly disappear without a trace, we'll have our answer …

_____

LOSING IT — Smartphones are almost commodity items for two big reasons: They are relatively inexpensive to replace (we do this even when we don't have to, for vanity's sake) and nearly every piece of information we access with it is in the cloud — get a new phone, log on to iTunes or Google and Dropbox, etc, and you are up and running in no time flat. Still, it sucks to lose yours. So, finally, the major smartphone players are voluntarily committing to building in anti-theft technology. Per re/code:

The commitment … has the backing of the five largest U.S. cellular carriers as well as the key players in the smartphone device and operating system markets, a list that includes Apple, Google, HTC, Huawei, Motorola, Microsoft, Nokia and Samsung. Those signing the pledge agree that devices going on sale after July 2015 will have the ability to remotely wipe data and be rendered inoperable, if the user chooses, to prevent the device from being reactivated without the owner’s permission. Lost or stolen devices could later be restored if recovered. The carriers also agreed they would facilitate these measures.

Some of this already exists in a hodge-podge way for consumers, and most enterprises use security software to ensure lockouts and the ability to remotely wipe devices. But a more-or-less standard doesn't exist, and the players are acting now at least in part because of a growing legislative desire to mandate a kill switch. The prospect of legislation makes friends of enemies, evidently.

_____

GET THE MESSAGE? — Before WhatsApp, Google Chat, MSN Messenger and ICQ there was AIM — AOL's breakthrough instant messaging service. It dominated in the 90s and early 00s, much like AOL in general. And like AOL, AIM is still around but a shadow of its former self. What happened is a master class in the Innovator's Dilemma, laid out in detail by Mashable's Jason Abbuzzese. The irony is that mobile messaging has become a major asset — what Influencer Mark Hull describes as "table stakes for any consumer internet company." Witness Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp for $19 billion, a figure CEO Mark Zuckerberg called "a bargain." The other irony: The value Zuck placed on WhatsApp is more than five times the market cap of AOL.

_____

BORED WITH YAHOO'S BOARD — Speaking of Internet pioneers, Yahoo posted solid-enough results to get press that CEO Marissa Mayer's turnaround strategy seems to be having a positive impact. But the elephant in the room is the size Yahoo's board of directors, now down to five, counting Mayer. That's pretty small for a company of Yahoo's size and stature. As re/code notes: Google and Microsoft each have 10, AOL nine, Facebook eight. Some in the tech press are taking the (evident) lack of movement as a troubling sign that Yahoo can't attract talent, or that Mayer's requirements are too stringent. What do the analysts who cover Yahoo think? Let's just say they aren't obsessed with the topic. The question of the board's size or composition didn't come up once in the post-earnings call.

Photo: Matthjis / Flickr

*****

Is your retail therapy now done on the couch? Are you weary of wearable hoopla? An "average" CEO or worker?

Comment below or write your own post. Share the URL here in the comments mentioning me or Tweet @LinkedInPulse. (Want to write, but don't yet have access? Leave your info here.)