1. The Motorola Purchase: Bloggers have written extensively about all the patents Google is getting in buying Motorola Mobile. Less noticed is Motorola's set-top box business, one of the two top producers in the U.S. market (the other is a division of Cisco). If Google doesn't sell the set-top box division (as some have speculated they will), these boxes could be the leverage Google needs to get cable companies to cooperate with a product that combines broadcast TV, Internet streaming, on-demand content, and social networking (something akin to Pandora's feature of sharing customized channels).
As TV makers rush to produce “smarter” television sets, able to draw entertainment content directly from the Internet, the Ottawa firm is providing a specialized web browser that can be built into a TV set and programmed to provide weather updates, YouTube videos or other video-on-demand services.
“We give them the ability to turn their TVs into smart TVs and enable them to connect to Internet video,” said Jaison Dolvane, president and chief executive of Espial. “We’ve been doing browsers around TVs for more than 10 years. There is a lot of intellectual property (that we have) around how to make this stuff look good, feel good and be used on a television.”
Espial, which has spent the past decade providing hotels and other corporate clients with video-on-demand services, received a huge boost for its TV software earlier this year when Internet search giant Google Inc. hastily pulled its Google TV offering after early reviews panned the product. Google TV, which many manufacturers were set to publicly reveal at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, aimed to merge the worlds of television and the Internet.
Google TV was meant to do to televisions what Google’s Android did for cellular phones — offer an easy operating system manufacturers could use to make their devices Internet-capable.
With Google TV, users would be able to view new videos on YouTube and then flip to Global TV to watch House.
While the service worked, early reviews about its interface and ease of use were not kind. Google quickly withdrew the offering, leaving TV makers with little to show at the world’s largest consumer electronics show earlier this year. It’s rumoured the company’s recent acquisition of Motorola, which was a leader in the world of TV set top box design, may help to revive the service.
However, Google’s efforts shone a bright spotlight on a growing need in the marketplace. Consumers want more than what traditional cable and satellite companies offer. They want video on-demand, Internet-based podcasts, instant news feeds and access to items stored on their home network — and they want all of that on their TV. Numerous companies, including Apple Inc. and LG, are jumping into the space, trying to provide the link between traditional TV and the Internet.
Espial, which has been serving up on-demand content for over a decade, saw the market opportunity as a chance to expand on its area of expertise. The company had been working on a browser for televisions using open source technology called WebKit, the same technology Apple and Google used for their Safari and Chrome browsers respectively. Espial’s browser allows TVs to play Adobe Systems Inc. Flash videos, connect directly to YouTube and access photos and videos stored online. As well, users can install a number of “apps” to get information about the weather, or sports scores.
2. Google's Rumored Interest in Hulu: A purchase of Hulu, the on-demand TV-show and movie streaming site, would represent a bid to work more closely with networks and other content creators, as The Atlantic Wire reported yesterday. Bids are due tomorrow.
3. Google TV's New Compatibility with Android Apps: Google announced yesterday that developers could begin building Android apps for TV. Since most apps for phones rely on the touch-screen user interface -- something TVs don't have -- developers will be starting mostly from scratch on imagining the possibilities of the TV-Android combination.
It's not clear how -- or whether -- these different gambits fit together. But it makes sense that Google has its sights set on your TV. Americans spend an average of 2.7 hours per day watching TV. That's about as much time as they spend on all other leisure activities combined.
Additionally, TV advertising does not have nearly the precision (and therefor lacks the efficiency) of Google's targeted ads. There is a lot of money to be made if Google could apply its advertising strategy to the many ads people view on TV.
Google may be ready for TV but it remains to be seen whether TV is ready for Google. Google TV hasn't fared well and cable companies are said to be wary of Google's entrance into their turf. And despite people's complaints that there's never anything good to watch on TV, the hours they spend watching it anyway tell it a different story.
In the end, Google may not rule our TVs the way it rules our Internet experience. And that makes sense: TV is a far less open field than the Internet was when Larry Page and Sergey Brin began tinkering with a search algorithm in 1996. Perhaps none of Google's forays into TV will pan out, but Google has a lot to gain if even just a few do.
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