Mixed Signals with Google TV
It turns out that the Google versus Apple war is not without
justification. Apple not so quietly became the “new king of technology” on May
26th, according to the New York Times, overtaking the legacy software giant also
known as Microsoft in terms of market capitalization – at least for a day. Whether
accidental, tactical to settle patent infringement cases, or shrewd foresight,
Microsoft’s investment in Apple has paid off – for Apple.
But where is Google in all this? It was poised to be the
king of the world. Perhaps the company Googled itself and discovered that
Microsoft was no longer the company to be called “evil.” Apple was on a major
trajectory, predicted by many (including Marc Benioff) to become the world’s
technology leader. Apple is now the “evil” company that is proprietary, not open, and all
powerful.
Meanwhile, Microsoft had been playing nicely—until recent
announcements—in the sandbox, while Google was the cool quarterback who hung
out by the swing set. Apple had been in another playground altogether. That is
until Google I/O 2010, when that quarterback went to the back of the class and
began shooting spitballs at the teacher – i.e., taking jabs at Apple. The battle
lines have completely shifted.
This is especially apparent when narrowing the technology
landscape to the media industry, the one in which Google is considered to be
the richest and most powerful company. That’s why Google’s I/O
conference last week was pure entertainment as the machinations behind the
Google engine became crystal clear.
In the past, Google had quietly been building up a very
sturdy but oddly quirky amalgam of wildly different product lines. To an outsider, it’s as if Google’s policy of
allowing employees to spend 20 percent of their time developing whatever they
felt like it was
too successful.
Sure, lots of products emerged, but what’s the common theme? Each product
from Orkut to Buzz is as different as its creator’s personality.
The only successful outcome of this vast array of products
is that so far Google has become Teflon. As much as people try to pin the
“evil” flag on Google, it never worked. Why? Besides search, Google has
developed no other dominant product – besides video with YouTube.
Then along comes Android – and this is where the Apple–Google battle really begins. In contrast to common perceptions, Android is not
following Apple’s footsteps. It’s the other way around. Android came out before
the iPhone. YouTube came out before Apple TV. Everything Apple did was most
likely a random Skunkworks project at Google years before. Alas, Apple is
engineered to be a product company while Google is simply an engineering
company. This is demonstrated by almost every one of its products being in a
perpetual beta cycle.
Which brings us to October 2009, when the Android 2.0 SDK was
released. Had Google gone about it on its own, it surely would have been a
failure akin to say the Nexus One, or it would have remained in perpetual beta
and no one would know what to do with it. But put the operating system in
partners’ hands and wow – Android is a critical success. And that’s the key –
partners. Google learned a great lesson with Verizon and Motorola (and to a
lesser degree HTC). It took the three working in tandem to put Android on the map
and make it a household name. Android especially with the 2.2 (Froyo) release now
has the potential to leapfrog the iPhone, even with the Apple marketing
juggernaut behind it and with the Apple Appstore machine at a seemingly
invincible point.
Before I get to Google TV, it’s worthwhile to take a step
back and ask the question – where did Android come from? Few seem to know that
Android was once a tiny company led by one co-founder of Danger (maker of the
famous Sidekick), one VP who was at T-Mobile, and one person who headed up Web
TV’s design and experience. Android was acquired by Google five years ago, two
years before the iPhone came out. It’s incredibly obvious that Google’s
intention was to get into mobile devices and TV, but the company always was
beaten to the punch.
It’s easy to say that Google is slow – the company had this great
team at Android, and rumors at the time of the acquisition were rampant: Google
was getting into phones and TV. But just before the rumors of the first
practical Google smart phones really heated up, Apple releases the iPhone. Drat!
No one knows how to create frenzy like Steve Jobs and Apple. Google seemingly
retreats and goes back to the drawing board.
Google was also going to enter the TV space. Drat! Apple
came out with Apple TV, but it’s not just the Apple TV product which almost no
one uses. Apple also has iTunes and people are “buying” TV shows directly
through it. This is when you definitely come to the conclusion that Google is
slow. Why isn’t YouTube the place where everyone goes to get their TV shows?
Why does YouTube smell of quirky viral videos and not high quality broadcast
“shows”? Why is Apple making TV more viral than broadcast television itself?
Perhaps the same thing is true with the tablet. Rumors
circulated that Google was going to enter the tablet space. Drat! Apple came
out first with the iPad. At Google I/O, no one would have been surprised had
Google announced a touchscreen tablet with a huge battery life. But Google was
forced to head back to the drawing board.
With TV, however, Google’s working itself into its own
frenzy. Clearly, some of the smartest people took a look at the entire Google
arsenal. They toss out the perpetually discussed but never delivered Chrome OS
and pick the wildly successful Android. They look at the successful partners
that Google pulled together for the Android devices and put that team in charge
of Google TV – itself not a product but a technology platform.
Google then gets Sony, Intel, Best Buy, Dish, and Adobe on
stage at Google I/O and take another jab at Apple. They are putting the
television operating system in the hands of the people who create the
televisions (Sony), who sell the televisions (Best Buy), who control a slice of
the network (Dish) and who create the visual experience (Adobe), and who have
control of the last few feet to the end user (Logitech). They’ve got their
television strategy down perfectly. Everyone can see that this will lead to
world domination.
But it won’t.
Because no one really wants to see a gigantic blown-out-of-proportion
HTML browser alongside American Idol. Nothing Google showed at I/O – from the
jerky video to the television show search and record capabilities was mind
blowing. Everyone’s seen this before with Microsoft’s awful Windows Media
Center. They’d even seen it before that with several technologies lumped into a
category called Interactive TV.
What no one is talking about is collaborative TV. While
everyone’s talking about the display, it’s the collaboration that is key, and
Apple doesn’t have it. Google could have demonstrated it, but they didn’t.
Google could have done a number of very compelling things, like showing how
Google TV can be synced to a Droid, or shown how Android devices could be used instead
of Slingboxes. Maybe Google could have demonstrated a massive multiplayer game
with Sony (wink wink was the response – when asked if this was coming). But no –
Google showed a massive browser that encapsulated a TV show, switched between a live show and a recorded show, and allowed people to see live Internet feeds.
That’s clutter. It’s an engineering solution to a problem no
one had. It’s a distraction – something that will cause marital spats, because
one person’s random TV interests are not another’s, even on a 56” screen.
Imagine the fights that break out when the spouse with the remote wants to
click on a Google simul-ad or the pop-up on a Pop-Up video, but the poor spouse without the remote has no
recourse except to settle back in the armchair with his tablet and do his own
IMDB lookup.
But these “could haves” are more compelling than anything
Apple has, and that’s why I’m optimistic about Google TV. There is a real
application that bridges a full collaborative Internet experience with
broadcast television. Maybe it’s one
that simply disintermediates broadcast television altogether. Why for example
does anyone need a set top box anymore when a television is running Android? Maybe
Apple is thinking that it is going to enter everyone’s living room with a new
TV experience. Microsoft tried it, but xBox loses money and well—let’s face
it—it’s a clunky box. Google,
however, is aligning the partners, taking aim at the right company, and has a
massive assortment of goods that can disrupt television as we know it. But
mindshare—and market momentum—means a lot and Google doesn’t yet have it
with Google TV.
I want it anyway.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0.
