Comments on: Schmidt Reckons Most TVs Will Have Google TV By Mid-2012

By: Quentin Aisbett

Quentin Aisbett — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:53:14 +0000

I agree with Tim. Google have identified rising sentiment coming from news about Apple TV, etc and decided they had to combat this. Unfortunately, people are already doubting them. I would be more than happy to see them prove us all wrong!

By: Kevin Drost

Kevin Drost — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:34:53 +0000

Ric, there are already 52 Million XBox in households and 35 Million people using XBox Live. That means they’re already in more households than ComCast, TimeWarner, FiOS, etc. Given that, I’d say M$ is already at the top. None of the cheaper or better set top boxes come anywhere close. I’d also argue the way that aging boomers discover connected television in the first place is via their children (and grandchildren) who are connecting via a game console.

By: Ric Desan

Ric Desan — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:30:05 +0000

“XBox may well take over the connected living room.”

Another pipe dream prediction. There are far too many cheaper and better set top boxes available that make the leap to Web connectivity to put M$ at the top. Particularly in the face of so many aging boomers that dont game yet maintain a conventional television environment.

By: djrobsd

djrobsd — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:01:12 +0000

I doubt that Google TV will be able to make such in roads in the market place. Logitech is already discontinuing the sale of Google TV devices because they were not able to sell them at a profitable price point and had to drop the price to $99 bucks. Sony made a goofy looking TV with sub-par specs (come on seriously an LED TV with a 60hz refresh and no 3d??) and it’s not selling too well. Samsung and LG are both doing their own thing and quite happy about it.

Unfortunately, none of them make an interface that’s worth using. The best interface I’ve seen for TV is either Plex or XBMC. None of the TV companies have adopted that, and you have to Jailbreak AppleTV to run it, although there is a promising port of Plex on the Samsung TV’s now (again have to work around to do this). Both of those are NOT consumer friendly though and really require you to be a “geek” and have a server a dedicated PC set up…

When will consumers adopt this stuff? Once they can turn their TV on and have the internet come up and see ALL the programming they want to watch. Until then, these will just be niche products… Once one of the cable companies starts offering an internet-based service for a fraction of the cost of traditional cable I predict mass adoption will ensure. Unfortunately, the greedy TV and movie studios are all trying to fight against this internet revolution (didn’t work out so well for the music companies). In the end consumers loose..

My prediction, once DirecTV looses their strong hold on NFL Sunday Ticket, and the NFL is allowed to have their own streaming service like MLB and Hockey already have, accelerated adoption will ensure.

By: @theslynch

@theslynch — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:22:58 +0000

Who the hell cares if Google trumps Apple trumps Xbox trumps TV makers. Ads created television–then–and NOW. The only thing that matters isn’t who wins–but–what the advertisements will look and where they’ll be placed. Considering, traditional television watching is down:

SAY Media released a study in November with
comScore and IPG Media Lab that finds one-third of the online adult population
– approximately 56 million people — had either stopped watching television
live or watched most of their video programming on a platform other than live
television.

One might wonder–where have all the advertisements gone?

Wi-fi enabled television = better data on household watching and more targeted ads. Which basically equates job security.

In a down economy, this break-through should be an answered prayer. Get me?

By: Laguy

Laguy — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:21:00 +0000

with the purchase of mototola mobility and their TV settop unit, a variation of that statement is almost assured

By: Offbeatmammal

Offbeatmammal — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:07:07 +0000

given a choice between a Google TV and an Xbox with the new media capabilities… I’m hard pressed to see why a TV maker would want to bake in the extra cost to run something that has so little real content available. If Google were actually innovating and doing content deals to bring me the content I wanted (so I could cut the CableTV cord) then it would be interesting but just scraping youTube doesn’t really cut it

By: Jim Thorp

Jim Thorp — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:43:47 +0000

Would be nice if they bothered doing something with SageTV.

I love my Tivo but with the recent price increase the cheapest new Tivo would cost me $500 (hardware + lifetime guide service)

Since one can buy TV guide info for $20/year retail, Google can pay a fraction of that, toss in some flash memory to offer a basic built-in DVR.

By: Khalid

Khalid — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:32:10 +0000

This actually isn’t crazy at all, though it may sound it.
Samsung(according to a couple of Google searches) has around 58% of US TV market share. They’re apparently going to produce Google TV-enabled Televisions. LG might also be doing that. Whilst I’ve no idea what LG’s US market share is, remember that Sony currently also produce Google TVs.
Even if Sony walked away and we assume a modest 5% market share for LG, that’s still more than 60% of market share. If both companies pushed it hard and in doing so produced many models, yes you could see the majority of new televisions on sale by Summer next year having Google TV embedded.

Remember, he didn’t say that the majority of purchased TVs would have it embedded, but those in stores. It’s really not as unlikely as people seem to think.

30 seconds of research really goes a long way.

By: TradingClearly

TradingClearly — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:15:58 +0000

Good point Kevin. I don’t plan on buying another TV for years. The flat screen I have now is fine.