Apple TV hasn’t made the cultural splash Apple had intended, now Google is attempting with their own offering, known simply at GoogleTV.
GoogleTV is mean to bring the internet to your TV sets and TV to your internet connection. Google will not release any hardware, instead much like they did with Google Android they will provide the software while currently relying on Sony, Intel and Logitech to provide the needed hardware.
The program features a nice set of abilities, such as a picture-in-picture option for sports fans so they can check box scores while watching their favorite video events and a Twitter option which can show Twitter updates for the TV programs you’re currently watching.
Much like Apple has repeatedly said the iPad is “revolutionary” Google decided to follow the same path of confidence, stating that GoogleTV will “change the future of television.”
GoogleTV equipped TVs are set to arrive this fall, but no pricing has yet been made available.
Once enacted it’s expected Google will use the new user experience to further build their ad network. In 2009 Google took in $24 billion in revenue but recently they’ve seen increased competition in the mobile advertising network and through the Bing/Yahoo partnership.
Unfortunately for Google today’s presentation didn’t go as planned. According to HuffingtonPost :
The demonstration of the new technology didn’t go smoothly at a Google conference for about 5,000 software programmers.
So many people in the audience were using the conference’s wireless access network that Google ran into repeated problems showing how its technology is supposed to toggle seamlessly between the Web and television programming. Google finally had to plead with the attendees to disconnect their smart phones from the wireless network.
Stupid programmers should know better when watching a presentation that heavily relies on wireless data connections. In any respect, I’m excited to see this new technology in action.
Here’s a Google TV preview video:
