Story highlights Google is pulling controversial Google Glass from the marketplace, rethinking it

Martha Pease: It was a mistake to put it in the market without more thorough testing

Martha Pease is CEO of DemandWerks, a firm that advises companies on marketing strategy. Her new book, "Think Round," will be available February 15. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.

(CNN) In the movie "Field of Dreams," Kevin Costner plays Ray Kinsella, a man who listens to a voice inside his head. The voice tells Ray to plow under his sole source of income -- his Iowa cornfield -- and build a baseball diamond for the ghosts of long dead Chicago Black Sox stars to come play in. The voice in his head says don't test out the idea, don't talk to anyone to see if it'll work, just build it, and they will come. Kinsella builds the field, the ghosts of the players arrive, and he's vindicated. That's how it works in the movies.

In reality, of course, it doesn't work that way. Just because you can build something doesn't mean you should. Even if you cook up something cool and new and make it available, real people may still not want it.

Martha Pease

Google seems to have stumbled on that simple fact last week. The tech world was surprised by an announcement that on January 19, Google Glass will be withdrawn from the marketplace. Sales didn't catch fire. Apparently, people didn't have much use for it . Google may have needed to stop and listen to the needs and emotions of people in the everyday world of consumers.

Good things certainly flowed from Google Glass. A mainstream conversation started about wearable tech, taking it out of the lab and thrusting it into the clutches of consumers. By pushing its agenda into this area, Google will help open the floodgates of products that deliver the promise of the Internet of Things.

Google Glass is a demonstration of what gives American business an edge. This kind of applied technology, that creates leaps into a whole new category of products and economic territory, is the essence of American competitiveness.

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