Dear Google, You’ve Killed Google TV

by Antonio Wells Dec 22, 2010 7:25 PM – 6 Comments

Dear Google,

You’ve killed Google TV! A beautifully initiated product that was not executed well. The New York Times article really disappointed me to learn that you’ve, again, shown how unreliable you are as a partner in the consumer electronics space. My hope, this is apart of a marketing gimmick to throw us in the media off and your television and set top partners such as Sony, Toshiba, LG, and Sharp are indeed showcasing new Google TV products.

Amid poor reviews by most media due to backlash from content provider agreements, it was still possible to massage those relationships leveraging hardware partnerships, peaking consumer interests with good marketing, superior software & hardware marriage and most important… timing. In the CE market, dominating CES 2011 is a strategic Chess move… not to be confused with Checkers. Now that you may lose key relationships with hardware partners and blown it with some of the worlds’ largest content brands, what’s left to make a product with lukewarm reception into the evolution of Internet television?

Are you going to hand the Internet TV market over so easy to Roku and Apple TVs of the world? Not that anything is wrong with those platforms, however they have yet to perfectly blend live or subscription television with Internet content, plus access to third party applications. Oh let’s not forget about Microsoft. If they were wise, the rumors of their Internet TV market entrance through existing Xbox consoles would allow them to capture this industry by surprise. Lastly, (villainous) Comcast can dominate if they properly execute on their experimentation of Internet TV DVRs. Seems they are listening to consumer demand of mixing their subscription and broadband Internet offerings.

Despite some of your unorthodox methods, you have a track record of excelling in adverse situations like this. Take Android, a little over two years ago many discounted the mobile OS and deemed it inferior and futile to mighty iPhone. Hmmm, my how those tables have turned. In conclusion, I think you’re going to have to learn how to become a stable partner, else be ready to pony up a few billion to mend those relationships if you want Google TV to be successful.

Sincerely,

Antonio Wells
Chief Editor of AndroidTapp.com
Co-Founder of AsSeenOnPhone.com

Tags: Google, Google TV, Internet Television, Internet TV

Categorised in: Apps Blog, Featured, News

6 Comments

By bob on December 23, 2010 at 5:03 am:

i think andriod is crap tbh, ive had my phone a while and im sick of the 3rd rate offerings on the market – yes even the paid apps. I’m also getting pissed off that loads of youtube (owned by google) content doest even play, yet iphone users dont have that issue.
Why does my phone have to have that flash player hogging 10mb opf phone memory when its not even showing loads of content? I cant even move it to my SD card.

Visially the only things that really make my phone appealing are
A. how it looks (HTC)
B Sense (HTC)

Next time I think ill go apple, even though i hate them

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- By Jason Norment on December 23, 2010 at 8:01 am:
  
  Eh, this is an iffy one.
  
  Not all content loads on iOS devices either. It’s dependent upon the format in which the YouTube user uploaded their video, not so much the YouTube app. The occasional “failed to load” screens I get on my Evo I also get on my iPod Touch and have seen repeated on iPhone 4′s.
  
  10mb of space? With today’s devices, that’s not a considerable amount of space. Especially with the amount of apps that can be moved to the SD card. Add that to the massive amounts of space found with some devices (take the Nexus S for example), 10mb is a minimal issue unless your using an older device with a small SD card (2GB or less).
  
  Have to go agree, I love HTC Sense. On my end, even with stock Android, I’d never choose Android over Apple. Guess we all have our own opinions on that one.
  
  Reply
- By Someone on December 23, 2010 at 8:08 pm:
  
  Of course apps will be developed for the market dominated platform right away, but do you really want to embed yourself in their camp?
  
  Just be a little more patient, and you’ll see companies like Rovio and such are offering their games with choice (a full Angry Birds ad supported, and soon-to-come ad-free pay version).
  
  If you’re tired of seeing 3rd rate apps, perhaps you should download the alternate market or reviewed apps (AppBrain comes to mind).
  
  As for the low memory / 10MB, most devices now (especially those that force-install Flash) come with at least 1-2GB if not 8GB… and remember, on that other platform? You may have 32GB, but you’re restricted in the number of apps you can install at any one time simply because their homescreen won’t support it — no other reason.
  
  Reply
By John on January 1, 2011 at 2:21 pm:

“We in the media”? Sorry, I don’t consider a cell phone review website “the media”.

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- By Antonio Wells on January 1, 2011 at 2:52 pm:
  
  Wow. What a way to try to undermine what we do and are considered. Riddle me this… do you only consider “media” those with printed or television ties, even those in your narrow mind whom you visit are only considered media?
  
  Ponder this, currently more than one million people per month from more than 220 countries get reviews, news, and more media from this “cell phone review” website.
  
  Why I guess we should close our media property down because some person didn’t consider us a media source. I guess we should tell all the PR firms, major trade shows, companies and advertisers to stop meeting with us and sending us juicy news to report on.
  
  Reply
By JMG181 on January 3, 2011 at 5:52 pm:

The NYT has been pushing out rumor and silliness regarding Google TV for some time now – including alot of reviewers out there completely missing the point. I can’t blame them on the last part, what Google TV is hasn’t been well explained, but…. the rumor milling I can. Why would any manufacturer have a delay by Google issuing an update to their OS? Google TV boxes can update at any time, the same as android, and yet just last week there was a flurry of rumor that Logitech was stopping production because Google asked them to.

I bought the Sony NSZ-GT1 (Blu-Ray Player with Google TV). It took all of five minutes for my fiancee (who is my technological litmus test for simplicity) to steal the remote, and start using it. She was even using it this morning after I left for work to watch some shows via Netflix, and then hopped on youtube.

I fail to see the issues people are complaining about. Access to the market? Stated explicitly not to happen until sometime in 2011. Content? You’ve got the entire WWW, the problem with content partners (Hulu) is that they want to make a grab for money where they were offering free services. Pay-for services that make sense (Netflix) work nicely on Google TV.

As far as your article here – where is the meat? A rehash of bad reviews written by bad reviewers, comments about content providers that – I’ll be candid here – have failed miserably at providing content through any means other than traditional OTA/Sat/Cable anyway, and then scattered comments about hardware partners.

All I see here is a sensational title and no real content/comments. I expect better than this.

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