“Google has finally announced its long-rumored TV efforts at Google I/O. Senior product manager Rishi Chandra said during the Thursday keynote that ‘video should be consumed on the biggest, best, and brightest screen in your house, and that’s the TV’, and that it hoped to combine the Web and TV-viewing experience in ways that others have yet to do.”
Way back in the 90’s Apple did some dealer channel training showing the trend in overlapping technologies and markets between computers, communications devices and media devices, and it was very clear that their direction was going to be governed by their belief that these markets would eventually merge into one. Finally we are starting to see the proof of this and other companies are jumping on that bandwagon too.
The longer term will be interesting for this market though. The concept of opensource is fantastic, but the fact remains that the largest players in the IT industry are not opensource at the core. Even Google’s own core business uses algorithms that are very secret, so while there are those applauding Google for their stance against Apple’s so-called tyranny, understand that this is nothing more than a business decision on their behalf.
They have a core business that is no different at all, in fact considerably worse, than anything Apple or Microsoft produce, and they make enough money from that core business, which nobody is taking the time to question, to be able to push projects like this to the “we hate everything closed” community in order to do significant damage to their competition.
Keep in mind that they alone can affect companies page rankings or even banishment from their databases if they so desire, and they answer to nobody, and in a world that is becoming ever more web centric this is a very powerful yet scary proposition.
We see many comments about Apple’s control over the App store yet very little about Google’s control over the web and therefore success of companies who decide to use methods other than those condoned by Google in order to gain better search rankings, or indeed companies who compete against Google or their “partners”. Through a project I’ve had involvement with for over five years I’ve seen first hand evidence of organic rankings dropping overnight from third or fourth spot to page three or four, suddenly to return when paid advertising was taken out.
While I applaud this product and much of the other stuff Google is working on, I, unlike some, am under absolutely no illusion that their goal, just like Apple’s, Microsoft’s, or any other corporation, is to return the maximum dividends to their stock holders. I don’t believe they care one iota about opensource, they are simply using that community to promote their products. And it’s no different for any of these players that involve themselves in opensource development. It’s nothing more than a strategic move designed to either boost their own products or hurt the competition.
This “bandwagon” has been going for 30 years already.
If it’s not Philips cdi (albeit the flop that it was), it’s games consoles or old BASIC driven computers that preceded it. All extend the functionality of your TV by bringing your computer to the living room.
And in terms of “all incorporated” devices – my girlfriend has a TV with a Windows 3 (IIRC) computer built into it.
So this concept is as nearly old as home computers are.
If that was who they were trying to target, then they’d have failed as a business as only an insignificant number of global users actually fall into the above category.
So can Microsoft with Bing. And Microsoft’s search engine is even more of a closed secret than Google’s is.
Besides, nobody is forced to use Google’s search engine. To use something different requires no application installation nor removal, very little computer knowlage and other search engines are just as platform indipendant and can even run on every single one of Google’s own OSs.
You can’t control the web. By it’s very design and nature it’s free. Hence why China (et al) have a full time job just trying to filter it.
Again, the people who care about opensource isn’t exactly a profitable market to chase after.
Therefore I think Google /do/ care about opensource. However you’re right that Google are just like any other company in that their primary goal is to be profitable. Thus as much as I do believe that Google care about opensource, at the same time I know they would drop FOSS contributions in a heartbeat if it was costing the company.
I have to say though – as much as I’ve argued against many of your Google-related points, I do wholeheartedly agree that we shouldn’t be complacent about Google’s impact on our lives. Not just for it’s grip on the internet, but also it’s effect on our own privacy.
In fact, the same points should be extended for the rest of the internet and all of the companies that offer social products on there (from search engines to social networking sites). But yes, Google are in a good position to abuse their power – so I do agree with your sentiments on the whole.
The key differentiator between the devices you mention and the stuff that Apple and Google are doing here is the communication aspect. These don’t “extend” your TV as much as integrate all the components.
I’m not sure what you meant by this, but their core business – web search – targets everyone. Android on the other hand by their own marketing to both developers and end users is initially targeting those who don’t like the Apple model. This is very evident from the original article.
Default search on Firefox? Safari? Until recently IE? Nobody is forcing people but for the majority of users they just use what’s standard. I agree with your point about Bing, which goes to the whole point of my comment, which is that Google is no better or worse than Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, etc.
But they CAN control what search results people get from the most widely used search engine, and therefore what products or companies the majority of web users support.
By this philosophy it would also hold true that Apple care about opensource then? After all they support and contribute to over 200 opensource projects. But I don’t believe any of them do, it’s just means to an end.
Which is really what I was saying. There are a lot of articles posted on this site that promote one company as good and another as evil, but at the end of the day they are all corporations who have one core goal, the same core goal. They might tell you their goal is something much more noble, but the reality is they’re there to make money.
That’s not entirely true. IIRC the CDI was as much about going online as it was about games.
You don’t have to use the default search engine though.
It’s very easy to change and even easier just to type a whole new search engine into the address bar.
Hence my point – as dominant as Google are, people aren’t tied into their platform.
But the sites still exist and Google don’t technically have a monopoly on search results.
I’ll chat with the rest of this later, but my laptop battery is about to die
The reason being that if you bought an iPhone/iPad, you are locked in to Apple. For apps, you have no other options apart from official app store. You can’t throw away the device and buy a new one. Money doesn’t grow on trees.
OTOH, web is open. You don’t need to buy a subscription for web search. If you don’t like Google, move to Bing, don’t like Bing, use Yahoo.
Search engines are not lock-in. This is the key difference.
IFF you bought an iPhone, and this policy has been in place since the iPhone came out, so the same applies, nobody is forcing you to buy one. You know what comes with the territory before you venture there, don’t go complaining about the sharks in the water after you dive in…
Ever heard of Cydia?
You need to jailbreak the phone? Right?
Chrome OS is certainly lock-in. You’re locked into web apps and whatever plug-ins Google will allow you to have. They even want to lock you into their own server-based printing service. Chrome OS locks you into the internet and out of local programs and drivers.
For those that think Google is such a great supporter of open source, why has Chrome for Linux been in beta so long? I can list numerous small and medium sized companies that do a much better job of supporting OSX and Linux and have a fraction of Google’s resources.
The double standard that exists for Google is sickening. If MS created an OS that was build around an online version office the tech press would throw a fit. Google is going to invent the Matrix next and the tech press will declare it as a great moment in computing history.
Let’s see the architecture on which Chrome OS comps run. If they are ARM, you can remove ChromeOS and install Linux. If they are x86, then you can even put your windows license over it.
You can’t do that in iPhone since Apple considers it illegal. Dunno why?
Most of the google software have been in Beta. Nothing special. This doesn’t make Google evil. I don’t say Google is the best friend of OSS, but still a lot better. What people like about Google is their relatively more open approach than other companies.
Now I can get served even more invasive and interactive ads on a shiny new TV. Just what I was waiting for! <sarcasm />
Edited 2010-05-21 00:03 UTC
…has been a computer monitor since 2004.
http://xkcd.com/732/
You could buy a 1600×1200 monitor in 2001 for £300-400.
All well and fine until you’re having mates over for football and beers (or movie, or whatever tickles your fancy). Crowding around a thirty inch monitor sitting on a desk cannot beat watching the game from a nice couch and a fifty inch telly. 🙂
The fact that the first devices will be atom-based is the only thing that bothers me. Atom CPU are extremely weak and the graphic chipset that work with them are even worst. (Cf. Tom’s hardware analysis of atom CPU).
I am a bit afraid they set up the quality bar too low for a first line which is supposed to impress people about Google TV.
Edited 2010-05-25 15:08 UTC