In an announcement today, Eric Schmidt of Google that they will launch GoogleTV worldwide late this year or early next. They are already partnering with Sony, Samsung (in the plans) and chip vendor Intel over this.
The idea is that they will allow functionality of the web built into your TV. If you are hoping a computer replacement then you are little off but if you were thinking live stream and content viewing, you are right. Now if you realize, this comes within days of announcement by another player (read Apple) about their product. So what is really in for the consumer like you and me?
Well, if you have been like me, you must have been wondering, when will the big fat electronic box sitting in your living room you call TV, will get smart and Internet aware? When will it have functionality of live streaming like the web? Why do you have to be limited to only one way viewership -- meaning that being limited to watching only what the TV broadcast companies decide to broadcast. If you look closely, apart from being more pretty and bigger, the basic idea behind TV viewership has hardly changed in the last 50 years. So of course, the ability of the viewers to decide what they want to watch is a very welcome change. But the problem is this. Today's TV networks are not geared to handle millions of simultaneous two-way communication between broadcasters and viewers; in other words, the TV networks are simply not made for this type of channeling. The other problem is advertising revenue which are the bread and butter of TV content. How will it be affected if the viewers take control of their own viewership? What about legislations governing TV content? Be cognizant that the advertisers with their deep pockets have presence in several lobbyist groups. So it is not really just a Technical issue, its also a political one.
Thankfully, we have the web, the most open platform of this generation. Who owns the web? No one. And everyone. So therefore the marriage of paid content on TV and freedom of the web are really a welcome change. Although we still need to see, how the broadcasters react to this and how the TV bandwidth leverages the technology behind the web.
So it would definitely be nice to see the openness of the web be reflected in the power of TV channeling.
I'm all about content providers who will let their content be as freely available as the content on the web, leaving it unto the viewers to decide where they want to go...
What do you think?
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