Google As Interactive TV Social Network?
Reto Meier discovered that Google's hiring for "an Interactive TV Product Manager and Sofware Engineers with experience in 'emerging TV standards' and 'deploying robust, high-volume applications for consumer devices'"

Google's forray into video, the coming 5% ownership of AOL, Eric Schmidt's admiration of MySpace, and Google's innovative culture point to a likely Google vision:

• TV commercials contextually targeted to a program's content
• video/TV shows on all devices, from phones to TVs
• TV network distributed over nationwide free WiFi
• Interactive TV social network

Don't look for GTV network this year, though. I think what we're seeing now is Google hunkering down for some serious laying of business relationship and technology groundwork.

When it does roll out it will likely be invite only and will likely have some social networking aspect tied in to it. People love talking about movies and TV shows. What's the #1 thing they say? "You gotta watch that!"

I'm a kill your television guy, but I love watching home made videos from sites like YouTube. If I could line up, say, an hour worth of internet video from my network and queue my selections on my television for watching later I might just take that "kill your TV" bumper sticker off my car.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |