Critics Tune Out On Google TV
Under the equally painful headline, "Google TV, Usability Not Included," The New York Times' David Pogue writes: "On the great timeline of television history, Google TV takes an enormous step in the wrong direction: toward complexity."
As The Telegraph notes, "The reviews will be a blow to Google's ambitions, but both writers suggest that initial problems are a mixture of hardware, software and content, and indicate that they have not yet written off Google's entire TV product."
Mossberg, for his part, does appreciate Google TV's integration of web video and regular TV. However, "For now, I'd relegate Google TV to the category of a geek product, not a mainstream, easy solution ready for average users," he adds. "It's too complicated, in my view, and some of its functions fall short."
At the moment, however, usability issues aren't even Google TV's chief concern.
Following blackouts from ABC, CBS and NBC, GoogleTV's only remaining network partner, Fox, just removed its content from the platform. "The feeling at Fox was that Google's 'footprint was too small,'" CNet wrote last week, citing an unnamed source. In other words, "Google TV had yet to develop a large enough user base to make it worthwhile for the broadcaster."
Meanwhile, at a conference last week, Google TV product lead Rishi Chandra admitted that GoogleTV wouldn't likely convince consumers to cut their cable cords anytime soon. "Our point of view is that cord cutting is not happening," Chandra said during a NewTeeVee conference. "We think the cable industry does a pretty good job of delivering content to users ... so we don't think that all of a sudden users are going to shut off all that content."
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