Google TV, Usability Not Included
Google Mail. Google Phone. Google Voice. Google News. — Holy cow. Is there any corner of our lives where Google doesn't want a toehold? — Not anymore. It's here, just in time for the holidays: Google TV!
Context & Ripple Effects
Google TV has been three years in the making: TechCrunch sketched the Android-style set-top box back in November 2007, and the March 2010 partner push for a television foothold turned the sketch into hardware with Sony and other allies. In September, Google went straight over consumers' heads, pitching Google TV to top advertisers as a new ad surface before a single unit shipped.
First-order effects
- Holiday-season buyers now face a launch the NYT review frames as unusable out of the box, putting Google's retail momentum at risk in its first sales window.
- The September advertiser pitch collides with the reviews: brands being sold Google TV as an ad platform are hearing 'usability not included' from the same press cycle.
Second-order effects
- Google's hardware partners — the alliance built since the 2007 box concept and formalized in the spring — carry the reputational cost of a rough interface on shelves bearing their names.
- Cable operators and set-top makers get a counterargument to hand: if web-on-TV needs this much friction, the incumbents' simpler guides look newly defensible.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the living-room contest will be decided less on whether Google can put the web on television than on whether it can make that web disappear into an interface people actually use — the same usability bar that decided search and mobile.
The trend: Google's expansion beyond search is running into a recurring constraint: shipping fast into new categories before the experience is polished enough to win mainstream users.