• Reuters, Friday, February 9, 2007 11:05 AM

Google execs yesterday fired a warning to television companies: The Web is not designed for TV as we know it. In other words, partner with us.

Indeed, TV companies are sorely mistaken if they think they can simply put their shows on the Web (like ABC), slap ads on them and expect to achieve a global scale. TV is shifting, but like any media transition, the shift is slow and awkward. For the time being, broadcast television retains its power over its copyrights, but what happens when new interactive Web-based TV services like Joost become the norm?

"The Web infrastructure, and even Google's (infrastructure) doesn't scale. It's not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect," Vincent Dureau, Google's head of TV technology, said during a cable conference in Europe.

What Google's offering--and trying to integrate through YouTube--is to combine its search technology with targeted advertising to make smaller, concentrated audiences more lucrative. Many cable operators were forced to concede to a "cloudy" future, in which Google and the Web are a mixed blessing.

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