Deep in the Googleplex there is an engineering team thinking about how to extend Google’s reach into your TV. Its work goes way beyond the Google TV ads currently being tested by EchoStar (and targeted with help from Nielsen). It even goes way beyond the development of a Google set-top box, which has been hinted at in the past. In fact, Google may very well want to do to the set-top box what it is trying to do to the mobile phone with its Android operating system—create an open-source hardware platform and attract developers to build applications on top of it. At least that is the unconfirmed rumor I’ve heard from two knowledgeable industry sources.
“That’s been a persistent rumor, yeah,” says Peter Barrett, chief technology officer for Microsoft TV (and the only source willing to be attributed by name). “You would have to ask them about whether they are doing anything like that and whether it is a good idea or not,” he adds. So I put the question to Vincent Dureau, the head of Google’s TV technology team and the former chief technology officer at OpenTV, who was hired by Google two years ago. “There are rumors about what Google does all the time,” he says. “We have been totally focused on advertising so far.” Google’s policy is not to comment on future products. But Dureau never denies the rumor outright. He couches his response with phrases like “so far” and “at this stage.” And, when pressed, he does allow that there is “a lot of potential” for turning the TV set-top box into a platform for applications, but insists, “I have no insights as to what form of applications will be deployed on those set-top boxes or not.” Perhaps. Or perhaps he just doesn’t have any insights he is willing to share with us. Fair enough.
Let’s read through the tea leaves ourselves then. So far, Google’s aspiration has been to change the way advertising is sold on TV. Through its partnership with EchoStar, it is automating the way TV ads are bought and sold, and changing the way they are measured (by studying the second-by-second logs from millions of set-top boxes in an anonymous fashion). But why stop there? The modern set-top boxes you get from your cable or satellite TV provider are basically computers. They are loaded with a few limited applications—a program guide, DVR menu, customer-service messaging, and not much else. They are closed boxes, tightly controlled by the cable and satellite TV companies. For the most part, there are not a lot of interesting applications that run on set-top boxes.
An open-source operating system like Android for the set-top box could change that. If creating applications for set-top boxes was more like creating applications for the Web, we’d be able to do a lot more things with our TVs—especially if those set-top boxes were also connected to the Web. Want instant messaging and caller ID on your TV? No problem. Want customized information widgets for the TV that scroll breaking news, weather, sports scores or stock quotes from sources you choose in your own ticker at the bottom of the screen? No problem. Want to turn that annoying ticker off? No problem. Want to control the camera angles on that basketball game? No problem. Want to add the live video stream from your friend’s cell phone who is at the game? No problem. Want to create your own video mashup of fight scenes from various movies that you can edit right on your TV and share with others on their TVs? No problem.
Oh, and what about new forms of advertising? Inserting ads into pay-per-view or triggering them when someone presses fast-forward on their DVR require applications of a different sort. You might not like that, but the TV industry would. Any new video ad unit that starts to gain traction on the Web could be ported over to regular TVs—clickable overlays, contextual video ads, unobtrusive sponsorship icons. Why not even let viewers program their own ads with a laundry list of categories and companies to choose from? They might actually watch them.
When it comes to advertising, Google is not shy about stating its ambitions. “We are confident we are going to revive the television advertising industry,” says Dureau, “by bringing new advertising to it.” Already, Google is trying to make TV ads more relevant, easier to target, and cheaper to deploy. As a result, Google thinks it can attract more ad dollars from smaller businesses that may not have been advertising on TV before.
“In many ways,” says Dureau, “we think that television is becoming like the Internet in that there is a multiplication of channels. This creates challenges for viewers, advertisers and creators.” He is already addressing the concerns of advertisers. An Android-like project for the set-top box could help address the concerns of viewers and creators by giving people more control over their TV viewing experience. And making the set-top box more useful by opening it up to a bounty of applications could mean more advertising opportunities. Those apps would be yet another way to keep viewers glued to their TV sets.
Before Google announced Android, many people thought Google was developing its own mobile phone. But the point of Android is to get other companies to build the phones and a new set of applications for them. Google wants to supply the underlying technology to make it happen, and finally bring the mobile world into the Web age. It should be obvious by now that Google is much happier when it is creating technology platforms—for mobile apps, for social apps, for advertising— than one-off consumer products. Why should it be any different when it comes to television? (And remember, Andy Rubin and others on Google’s Android team used to work at WebTV and TV software startup Moxi Digital, although Android is not officially part of Dureau’s group).
In any case, Google would not be the first to try this. Some of the hypothetical applications I describe above are already being developed for Microsoft’s IPTV set-top boxes, which runs Microsoft Mediaroom. Anyone can write an application for Mediaroom on the PC and easily make it work on an IPTV set-top box (or an Xbox or an HD-DVD drive, both of which come with Ethernet jacks). There are only about 50 or so third-party apps for Mediaroom right now, however, because making TV apps easier to build is not enough. Getting cable or satellite TV providers to put those apps on their set-top boxes is the bigger battle.
“Service providers are open to good rich apps on their network if they do emerge,” says Microsoft’s Barrett. Not surprisingly he does not think that an open-source, Android approach is the way to go. “Trying to make a level playing field,” he says, “really is not in the service provider’s interest. It is in Google’s. But if you just throw the doors open, the TV or the phone becomes unusable pretty quickly.” The same argument is why Apple is cautious about allowing third-party apps on the iPhone. You don’t want some random app crashing your cell phone or your TV. But that just means device makers or carriers need to certify that the apps are safe. The still-closed mobile world is moving in this direction despite these issues.
The prospect of opening up the TV to Web-like applications holds a lot of promise, especially if those same apps can run on the Web or mobile phones with a few tweaks. Whether people will want those apps on their TVs is another question entirely. So far, the answer has been no. But that could just be because it has been too difficult to get apps onto those set-top boxes. For this to work, Google would have to convince at least one cable or satellite TV provider to let viewers try out the resulting apps on its service. Google already has a strong relationship with EchoStar, which I hear is for sale. My understanding is that Google is in the early stages of developing its Android set-top box strategy. It may end up deciding not to pursue it. But it is the type of thorny problem that Google engineers (and ad sales executives) thrive on.
Is this a free Linux OS we can put on any box or is Google getting into the hardware business?
Is Google going to ship illegal DVD, blu-ray and HDDVD encryption keys with it’s Linux OS for TV?
If not how do they plan on merging that with a GNU licensed foundation?
makes no sense, makes no sense…
No, Google is not getting into the hardware business. It’s like Android—a free, open-source operating system. Read the story, Chris.
Or is this going to be like Ubuntu, where you have download scripts to get pirated decryption packages from some country you can’t pronounce the name of? If so, won’t they be in some hot water? They are Google after all?
Nobody has SD anymore. How will they do HD on Linux without legal troubles. That is the most obvious question and you didn’t answer it in the article at all.
Google will likely expand into all forms of media and entertainment.
By the middle of the next decade there will likely be:
Television, Cable, Radio stations, Movies, Periodicals etc.
Google will expand into giant a communications network - like Microsoft expanded into a software giant.
It’s a very steep entry to get between the terminal device companies, like Scientific Atlanta, and the cable companies. There are issues of a entrenched market, mature competition from Tivo, and the enhanced services like DVR and more being offered on incumbent equipment.
SO much for the cable market, although there could be OEM licensing opportunities - I dont see Google in the role of licensing closed platform modules.
Another, better Web TV for broad band accounts with an Android OS? Now, there you have an idea. Broadcom chipset, for cable modem, Linux android embedded system, and a back end fpr video and internet content.
Oops, gotta get that data connection…cable and telco won’t roll over on that one! Hmm, how can we get that last mile to the new Google TV box…..
WIMAX! Send that bid in, Segey!
Do we really need another Web TV? Souldn’t google be looking at something even better?
From what I read so far on http://androidwiki.com/ the platform aims at portable devices. Regarding the advertising, I am all for changes, and if the TV changes mean that I can watch a movie without interruption while seeing some ads relating to the viewed program guide in between, I’m all for it. Less intrusive ads are ok.
What about a Linux based OS built into the Monitor? Put a browser in your TV and you don’t need a Set-Top you only need a net connection and some peripherals.
That is where the Hardware makers will continue to dominate the TV but the software guys will be able to build on the platform and rule the user experience.
See where that puts Google now?
Shouldn’t the rest of us be burning the hell out of Google’s search business while they play around with this crap?
Oh yeah…..
Wherever there is a Digital Platform, Google wants to be the main Advertising Platform.
Think the Internet, The Mobile Web, Business Enterprise, Newspapers, Radio, Games, etc.
Google has no need to develop much original content for either of these Digital Platforms. It only aims to use its successful Search/Ad Model and act as the main Advertising Toll Booth for everyone who travels throughout the Digital Spectrum
.
By having the dominant Advertising Platform across the whole Digital Spectrum will give Google unbelievable power and leverage in dealing with all Global Advertisers and Ad Agencies.
Currently Microsoft is trying to play catch-up with Google’s dominance of the Search/Advertising Platform. But Google’s future goal is to have complete dominance of all Digital Advertising Platforms.
This future Ad strategy for Google makes Microsoft’s current plans look like a tortoise chasing a Ferrari.
Microsoft wants to make a mark in the current Digital Advertising Market, but I’m afraid that Google is currently reinventing it.
Since there aren’t any forums I have to ask this here. About 6 months ago TC had a post about a web 2.0 startup that allowed employees to post comments about companies they work for or have worked for. Does anyone know what the name is?
Searched archive but can’t find it. thx
Exciting to finally hear! WebTV done by Google and the engineers of the world!
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the YouTube.com in your article. Any box Google may or may not be developing would have to interface with technologies that Google has already invested in.
Android is a great move from Google, may be the biggest move - until - now ?.
Think about this.. nowadays hardware is cheap and ubiquitous, linux well mature and java Languaje (and syntax).. widely adopted worldwide.. this guys are fantastic…. just glue the components together and suddenly they could potentially be everywhere
Without a doubt this is something Google is working on. They can deny it all they want. I see it as a logical extension of their other projects.
This is what I though Yahoo was going to do with Yahoo! Go 4 TV (formerly Meedio)
If Google wins the 700 mhz spectrum auction there is no reason programming could not be delivered right to these boxes IPTV style OTA. Better yet the programming would probably be ad supported and free. Bye bye cable companies (IPTV), and phone companies (VOIP).
Great article, Erick.
As a former googler, I can say that this comes as no surprise. I found Barrett’s warning over open platform app’s crashing, to be a vaild concern.
Anyone who used an early treo with 3rd party non-palm aps will remember how many crashes a day you were going through, not fun. Some technologies are meant to be closed to protect the integrity of the user experience. The cable providers are undergoing an industry wide improvement with their Canoe effort. It takes full support, otherwise the user experience suffers.
No idea if this is true, but it was said the other day that Google is looking at the guys from http://www.avinity.net to use their technology to bring internet to the TV.
Great post. Very insightful. Thanks for putting it together.
It would seem that 1,000 a share price is just around the corner.
Gary, as a former Googler, I would love to pay you a smallish sum to analyze our search. I know this comment is out of context, but I am taking the chance of opportunity. Please contact me via telephone tomorrow through the contact link on the hyper link on my screen name if you want to do it. I just need some proof that you worked there on search.
optv will be the winner in this game!
This post makes me sad. I just spent a small fortune on a lifetime subscription Tivo HD (they are allowing that again) and realized that if any of this comes to fruition within the next 4 years I will be sitting on some seriously outdated machinery.
By 2010 most if not all TV’s will really be nothing more than computer monitors or at least have that option, this would be an easy addition as everyone would already ave the monitors. I cannot see the major networks liking this one bit, but I don’t see anything they could do to stop it.
If google wants to get inside my tv, it’s simple - just build a plugin for mythtv that allows me to watch the myriad cool google video and youtube things trivially from within mythtv.
As a technology entrepreneur and lover of TiVo, and, further, a lover or many-things Google, I have a thought that seems to make sense (at least to me): Google buys TiVo. Android appears to be a pretty cool and useful mobile platform, and forces a much needed change in the mobile industry, but seems to be a “square peg in round hole” scenario. Perhaps I am wrong. But, as of this post, TiVo’s market cap is a tad under $600M. Cheap for Google (sorry TiVo execs and founders). And think what Google would get: a superior product, great UI, a very loyal group of users/customers, an existing product with plenty of ad potential and built on Linux and could easily be opened more - hell, even Android-it.
Great write-up, Erick! It got me thinking this direction.
“…You don’t want some random app crashing your cell phone or your TV…”
Android’s kernel is protected ( like UNIX ) so would the set top box - sounds like Mr. Barrett is trapped in the Microsoft “let apps have all the resources they want even if it crashes the OS” mentality and cannot escape.
Its interesting to read about the possibility of this. If you look at what Google has done in the past you can see that they could potentially look at every cable/sat box as a website. The same way google adsense works. Ads would be shown based on your viewing preferences. And just like adsense its upto the dish/cable companies to bundle there boxes with google in them . What would be pretty incredible is if you the viewer could get a percentage of the ad revenue based on the ads you look at . very interesting indeed
This’d be great, but… open is never ever ever ever ever going to fly in the TV industry. It’s only about forcing you to watch ads. Anything even remotely open will fall into obscurity because networks/giant companies with people and suits and lots of lawyers both cringe and explode at the word, because it means
I really hope the genuises at Google to put their minds into creating DRM.
So unless it’s none of the above, I really wish Google wouldn’t do this.
When access to the internet via TV is very low (2% of the U.S. Broadband Population accesses the Internet via Television, source: Netpop.com U.S. 2007), there is only one way to go…up. The question remains, how long will it take. Since broadband penetration is >50% of all U.S. households, it’s a much different playing field than the days of web tv. Yet, it’s going to be years to see the dial move significantly.
sorry… should be “because, to them, it means less money, or so they think, anyway.”
Is it me, or does someone need to give Chris R a sobriety test?
I’m afraid he might be guilty of a TUI
typing
i think this will be an interesting new product but are google starting to spread themselves to thin with so many products? Shouldnt they primarily stick to what they are good at?
#35, what exactly is Google good at besides search and maps? So far, most of their stuff is over hyped symbolism that never amounts to much, other than pushing their stock price beyond reasonable levels.
Even their core personalization domain, iGoogle, is badly done. For me, it shows 388 HTML parsing errors simply because they are using a doctype of HTML 4 strict. It’s not very surprising, then, that if their portal is full of over-engineered cruft, that they struggle getting viable products out the door.
When I read this several things came to mind. AppleTV, MythTV
I expect that eventually we will have one computer. It will then be connected to multiple thin clients. One thin client may be attached to our tv - replacing a DVR, DVD player, cable company. Another thin client will operate as a mobile laptop, etc.
Hey Chris,
you should totally check this out! Might help you with your search engine.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....planation/
i think the key would be programming. as long as it takes it’s leisurely pace in evolving in-to a format that is friendly to casual-interaction, the set top boxes aren’t more than mere cheap computers hooked up to an expensive monitors.
Google is making some big movs with this, Android ( http://www.androidapps.org ), OpenSocial, bidding on the wireless spectrum, etc. It will be interesting to see if the could succeed in these areas the way they did with search.
Google is slowly deploying their plans to overtake the world it seems like somedays. They are really developing a nice portfolio for web based application development.
http://www.tekbite.com
Is there anything left Google is not doing or cannot do?
Hmmm I’m not all that impressed by this, especially considering Google is rapidly expanding into as many fields and mediums as possible.
Sounds a lot like what the Neuros OSD is already doing. Google would be better off buying neuros than starting from scratch. See: http://www.neurostechnology.com/
Having done development for “interactive TV” way back when (as in 1995/6) on a very proprietary platform, I have to say that this kind of approach from Google is intriguing.
The idea of having a platform which, while not being an “authorized” standard, is at least a conventional one could give some boost to application development. As a developer, I like the idea of having a shot at more than one end-user platform while avoiding cross-platform migration hassles. Especially if the software platform provides hooks and conveniences for graphics rendering, video playback, network connectivity, etc.
Sure, mis-behaving apps might be able to wreck havoc. However, I can readily imagine sandboxing apps at the OS level and/or vendors implementing certification programs.
As for the points made in other posts about the conventional powers-that-be being turned off over losing control of advertising, you may be missing the point. It seems that the article is stating that the delivery mechanisms for ads could be facilitated and added on to. How about that idea of display of ads during DVR fast-forward - capability built into the platform?
I worked in the interactive TV biz (Wink) and worked with cable, satellite and set-top box companies. Here is where I think this is leading:
1) Nifty apps that run on the TV are not a driver. The whole idea of interactive TV assumes that TV watchers want to interact, which is precisely what they are avoiding when watching TV ;->
2) The cable/satellite companies are largely indifferent to the set-top technology as long as it locks in customers and helps to sell high priced services. There have been any attempts at defining “open” set-top boxes, and none have gained traction.
3) Where a Google set-top box hits is in the delivery of highly targeted advertising. For example, if Google traffics ads, and a different one appears for me (household demographic = 50 year old single male of upper-middle income) than my neighbor (household demographic = family of four, lower-middle income), then everyone in the delivery chain benefits. The broadcaster (who owns an advertising slice), the local affiliate (who owns an advertising slide), and the operator (who also owns an advertising slice).
And nifty apps that run on the box to make viewing a different experience are largely dressing.
Google should avoid set-top boxes. Or at least, boxes that are provided, ie “managed” by traditional TV companies like cable, satellite and IPTV service providers. The rumours are rife that Google is planning an Android for the TV space, and should be no surprise since Vincent Dureau joined the company a couple of years ago, having been CTO at OpenTV, the interactive TV market leader. He isn’t there to improve search, that’s for sure… See http://www.strategyanalytics.com/blogs/dmercer/119 for more.
Hi,
we at TVBLOB created a TV-centric platform (very similar to Android architecture): Box Vendors can get our toolkit to create multimedia home appliances; Publishers can create TV services without our permission using open source AJAX; Users can share and publish content with their own bandwidth and communicate in video P2P (e.g. I can make a TV channel for my mother showing her grandson…). - http://www.tvblob.com
bye,
pancrazio
You’ve got your Internet in my TV!
You’ve got your TV in my Internet!
A look at 2010 and beyond . . .
Incentifying viewers to promote ad viewing amongst OTHER viewers is the secret sauce that can make the Android set top box and in-TV card/chip ad revenue premise so compelling, putting it on steroids, making it a lognormal order of progression number that will be unchallenged. I say this again, incentifying viewers to promote ad viewing amongst OTHER viewers is the secret sauce that can make the Android set top box and in-TV card/chip ad revenue premise so compelling.