Google TV

I went to the Sony store today and saw the new Sony device with Google TV. While asking the rep about Google TV and watching a demonstration he discussed how many of the networks have blocked Google TV which I feel is very shortsighted and narrow.

Google TV in one word is - integration - meaning that TV and the internet is now fully and seamlessly integrated. This will open up huge opportunities to monetize the actual platform.

Here is the gist about how it works, it's basically TV and the Internet all in one so I can search for the CNN news channel on TV as well as open up their website to see what is going on. So as an example, we could be watching a political campaign and while it's on, from Google TV, immediately go online to post comments and fill out polls about it. This would create a real live experience and take the overall time lag out of TV. The discussions could be happening immediately. TV will then become more dynamic and engaging.

Here are just a few ways for networks, companies and ad agencies to monetize this opportunity:

1) Compulsive Shopping - Just imagine watching a TV ad for Ray Bans sunglasses and right on the commercial it stated, "to purchase these, click here" and you did, which then took you to a "buy now" landing page. Then, you could have your credit card details already saved in a secure wallet for these types of purchases so all you had to do was click "buy" and it was done. The Ray Bans would be billed to your card on file and sent to your address which was already saved. This could potentially be a massive consumer product sales angle for every consumer based company in the world.

2) Selective Subscriptions - I don't personally watch TV and haven't subscribed to it for about 10 years however, if I could select and pay for a program that I want to watch like the Olympics or Lost for a fee related specifically to those shows, I would. The fee would be prorated specifically for those shows and number of episodes. I don't personally want all of the other TV channels regardless of price because I feel a lot of it is garbage that I don't want my children watching but I would absolutely pay for just what I want. I'd like to pay for the World Series of baseball when it's on rather than the entire ESPN channel. With Google TV, you can create these sort of options and therefor bring in new viewers that are not currently paying for TV of any kind. You could also make a higher profit based on the pay per selection model.

3) Increased Viewers - Due to the above two items, the networks would pull in new viewers who were not currently watching TV or subscribing to TV or who were more inclined to use the internet rather than TV. I'm sure the Internet is causing TV to lose viewers and will continue to do so with sites like YouTube, Hulu etc, all of the viewers are shifting online. However, with Google TV, these viewers could not only be maintained but this could actually grow the overall viewers who would have otherwise left.

I think it's smart and I think the networks are being silly for trying to resist it or block it. Why resist it? Embrace and adapt and figure out all of the angles to monetize it. This will absolutely become the way of the future.

- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group