Take Off the Blinders

Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire continues its buying spree, spending $2 billion for a manufacturer of virtual reality goggles, which Facebook hopes to turn into another platform for connecting people through the next generation of techno devices.  It sounds like an in-home version of 3D glasses—the idea is to make you feel like you are face to face within the other person’s environment—their home, office, backyard, sports event, store, where ever. If you could only add a touch and smell feature you might as well be there. But that’s next… Or is that what Google Glass will become?

The 3D glasses thing never panned out beginning with the 1950s Vincent Price vampire movies and apparently the Oculus goggles, in which Facebook just invested, give some wearers motion sickness. Whatever… the relentless march of technology continues to assault economy and weakens demand for commercial real estate space. Armed with smart phones, smart pads, and wireless connections we can work or shop from anywhere. Skype lets us video conference… potentially Oculus can up the experience level. You are your office… Smart companies will continue to shed space as various applications let managers keep tabs on their employees wherever they are with greater scrutiny and security…  And retailers get wise—not only does the convenience factor make online shopping increasingly compelling, but also the improved experience of finding what you want online eats more consequently into bricks and mortar market share. Why pay for  space in too many malls and hire all those sales clerks, which eat into bottom lines?