More Evidence That Google Glass Will Be A Hit With Businesses

Fresh off last week's hilarious investigation into the life of a Google Glass wearer by The Daily Show (where Glass-wearing folks were totally ripped on), Google is fighting back.

Monday morning, Google announced the first five members of its "Glass at Work" program. The program was launched in April for developers working bring enterprise apps to Glass. Google never specified exactly what developers get from this program but it did say that hundreds of them applied.

From that list it has selected these five companies as authorized "Glass at Work" developers:

APX Labs which makes a product called Skylight. Skylight lets enterprise create secure apps for their companies such as "see what I see" where field workers can share a video stream from Glass to their colleagues.

Augmedix which helps doctors automatically enter information during health exams into electronic medical records.

CrowdOptic's which makes software that crowdsources video from an event, such as a sports event or trade show conference, and then lets you view it from all these different perspectives. Teams like the NFL Eagles and Sacramento Kings are testing this app.

GuidiGo makes guide tour software for museums and cultural institutions.

Wearable Intelligence offers a variety of apps for manufacturing, healthcare, and other industries such as checklists for people in the field, training videos, and "context-aware" alerts that can send a worker messages depending on what the worker is doing.

Wearable IntelligenceA 'context-aware' alert from Wearable Intelligence as seen through Google Glass

Google Glass could prove to be a bigger hit with businesses than consumers. Market research firm Gartner once predicted that companies using Glass could save $1 billion a year, mostly thanks to improved productivity.

Companies experimenting with Glass include Virgin Airlines, Westpac Bank in Australia, Beth Israel Deaconess medical center.

But new research shows that consumers are not so keen on the new device. When over 2,000 Americans were how they felt about Internet-enabled glasses like Google Glass, only 15% were interested in Glass, according to a recent survey on the "Internet of Things" from a company called SOASTA, which tests websites and apps.

That compares to 39% that were interested having Internet in their cars, 34% interested in smart home appliances, 22% who wanted smart fitness devices and 22% who wanted to be able to find lost pets via the Internet.