Have you ever played the what if game? What if I won the lottery? What if there was a phone that did my laundry? What if we could effectively merge television and the internet? That last what if is a dream that many companies have strived for (and many geeks long for), but Google is making a good stab at it right now.
Although the information about Google TV is pretty new, we do know a few things about it. If you are interested in a basic FAQ relating to the topic, then I suggest reading Greg Sterling’s article “FAQ: What We Know So Far About Google TV”. The biggest questions are what is it and when will we see it? And Sterling answers that concisely with “an open platform that unites TV programming and the internet. It supports Flash and makes the full internet available…on TVs.” The general consensus seems to be that Google TV will be available in the fall of 2010.
Some of the bigger questions for those in the online marketing sector are: will it replace cable TV? and will there be advertising? and will there be tracking like the online sites? Like with any new product, we will have to wait to see how successful it will be. So no one can predict whether or not it will replace cable TV. I know I would bet that Google if planning and hoping that its long-term success will include being a serious contender for cable. However, we do know that there will be advertising and that Google TV include “tracking and data collection, partly for personalization and partly for ad ROI accountability and targeting” although they are also offering an “incognito” option as well.
Knowing that advertising and tracking will be a part of this new initiative for Google means that we are already thinking about search and how this will fit into our marketing methods for online search. As Chris Crum points out, for now we can only focus on a few concerns when preparing for Google TV:
– Optimize your video content, both by making the quality of your video top notch and by ensuring that your videos come up in search results for Google and YouTube.
– Make sure your site looks good on big screen TVs.
– Ensure that your search results are top-notch for Google. “If you thought Google had a great deal of market share before, imagine how many more searches Google would get from the TV set, if this thing really takes off.”
– If you haven’t begun to incorporate Android apps into your marketing plan, now is the time, as Android apps will be accessible through Google TV.
Although most of this is a wait and see game at this point, there are some angles to consider and preparations we can make for Google TV.