A Venture Integrating Skype Into the Family Room
SAN FRANCISCO — There will soon be something new to watch on the living room TV: your relatives and friends in different parts of the world. — On Tuesday, Panasonic and LG Electronics, two of the top television makers …
Context & Ripple Effects
Skype has been trying to escape the desktop for years: back in August 2007, two device partnerships were read as evidence the service mattered beyond the PC. The Panasonic and LG announcement puts that ambition inside the most-watched screen in the house.
For LG, embedding Skype continues a playbook it has run since 2007 — a YouTube-capable handset that year, then the Netflix streaming TV and set-top box deals announced in January 2008. Both manufacturers are treating native internet services as a differentiator on the spec sheet, not an add-on box.
First-order effects
- Owners of the new Panasonic and LG sets can make video calls from the living room with no PC in the loop, while Skype wins mass-market distribution without having to ship its own hardware.
Second-order effects
- Rival television makers now face video calling as a checkbox feature alongside refresh rates and contrast ratios, and camera-microphone peripherals become a new accessory line attached to premium sets.
Third-order effects
- If service-by-service embedding holds as the pattern, the gatekeeper role Skype once negotiated with PC makers shifts to TV manufacturers deciding which internet services get native placement — the same battleground Google was reported to be eyeing when it sought a television foothold with partners in early 2010.
The trend: Television makers are converting the set from a broadcast receiver into a platform for embedded internet services, with Skype's video calling as one of the first third-party entrants.