Google TV: everything you ever wanted to know
Google made some waves yesterday when it announced the new Google TV platform, backed by major players like Sony, Logitech, Intel, Dish Network, and Best Buy. Built on Android and featuring the Chrome browser with a full version of Flash Player 10.1 …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's television ambitions had been floated as a Google set-top-box concept in 2007, then returned in March coverage of its effort to gain a television foothold. The intervening account of how Google TV would work framed the project as more than a single device.
The announcement turns that arc into a partner-backed platform built on Android, Chrome and Flash, tying Google’s television push to Sony, Logitech, Intel, Dish Network and Best Buy.
First-order effects
- Google extends its Android and Chrome software stack into television through Google TV, with Flash 10.1 included in the platform.
- Sony, Logitech, Intel, Dish Network and Best Buy become identified backers of Google’s TV-platform approach rather than merely outside observers.
Second-order effects
- The partner group gives Google TV a route across device, software and distribution channels, making coordination among those backers central to how the platform reaches viewers.
- Google’s browser-based TV interface puts pressure on competing television platforms to define how web content and applications fit alongside conventional TV experiences.
Third-order effects
- If partner-backed Android television platforms proliferate, control of the TV interface becomes more contestable between device makers, distributors and software-platform operators rather than residing solely with a single TV system.
- The move points toward television products being differentiated by their software ecosystems and browser capabilities as well as by the hardware itself.
The trend: Television is becoming a contested software-platform layer, with web technologies and multi-company alliances reshaping who controls the interface.