Google has announced its first content partners for Google TV, its effort to marry two mediums — the Internet and television. But the announcement underscored the difficulties companies face as they try to work their way into the living room.
The major television networks — ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC — will not participate, at least for the moment. However, several Internet companies and media outlets, including HBO, CNBC, Twitter, Netflix and Amazon, will work with Google to offer Web content and programming via television sets, the company said. They will allow on-demand viewing or build apps for TV screens.
James L McQuivey, a principal analyst at Forrester, the technology research firm, called the partnerships "underwhelming." Still, he said, other Google TV features, like the ability to search the Web for information about an actor or chat with friends on Twitter while watching TV, are more important to its success.
"They don't actually need content partners to start their little revolution," he said. "They don't need the major broadcasters to play along, because they can do a lot of cool things with you as a viewer without having to share any of the money."
Google TV is the latest and most prominent service to connect TVs to the Web, promising to make all the living room's audio and video as searchable and instantly accessible as the Internet's content. That promise requires significant cooperation from media companies, and many have been reluctant to help.
With Google TV, the company wants to be a leader in the budding industry of Internet-connected television sets.
The average American watches five hours of TV a day, making it the biggest medium for advertisers. "One of our goals with Google TV is to finally open up the living room and enable new innovation from content creators, programmers, developers and advertisers," Ambarish Kenghe, developer product manager for Google TV, wrote in the company blog post on Monday.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment