Around the Net
Google Bringing The Web To TV?
- The New York Times et al., Thursday, March 18, 2010 2:15 PM
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google was quietly testing a TV search service in partnership with satellite TV provider Dish Network. Blurring the line between TV and online content even further, The New York Times says to look out for a "Google TV" platform, which the search giant plans to launch with the help of Intel, Sony and Logitech.
"The move is an effort by Google and Intel to extend their dominance of computing to television, an arena where they have little sway," surmises The Times.
The Google service will run on Intel's Atom-powered set-top boxes, and that Logitech is developing complementary remote controls, according to The Times. What's more, the Google TV platform will be opened to third-party developers to write their own plug-ins, as they have for the Android platform.
"Given the two complementary reports from two of the major daily papers, it seems logical to assume that Google is likely leaking the news ahead of a launch," suggest PC World. "Furthermore, the open platform concept seems to be in keeping with Google's strategy."
"The Mountain View Chocolate Factory has long offered a Google TV Ads program that lets marketing types use their online AdWords accounts to serve ads onto cable and satellite televisions channels," notes The Register. "And the company has been known to say that its Internet know-how can save the future of television, showing slow-witted traditional TV businesses how to cope with things likes DVRs and an increasingly fragmented audience."<
According to Digital Beat, Google's TV Ads program was hardly a success. As such, "Since Google's colossal success in web advertising didn't transfer to the old-media world of television, it makes sense to bring web advertising to the TV instead."
Still, "It's far from clear that consumers even want interactive TV," says ZDNet's Between The Lines blog. "History is littered with interactive TV flops. Apple TV? Hobby at best."
