Google TV

Talk of Google Android spreading from mobile onto TV is flying around the web. If it happens, what will determine whether "Smart TV" takes the lion's share, or whether it becomes yet another standard among many for connected TV?

Here are seven aspects to consider:

1. Parental Control

It must have parental control built in at the core. It's no good just having one big "content lock" at the entrance, dividing the world into adults and non-adults.

2. DRM

If it's to support a range of business models, it'll need a robust DRM mechanism to protect premium content.

3. Hybrid broadcast and IP

Most households will want to retain access to the broadcast channels that they're familiar with, and the combined experience of existing broadcast and new over-the-top services will work best if it's a unified service. If you have to switch the TV to a different input and use a different box, a number of people won't be bothered to make the transition. If the broadcast and over-the-top services are fully integrated though, that will encourage people to cross the threshold. If it's done well they won't even realise there is a threshold.

4. Quality, not quantity

Consumers don't want more choices, they want better choices. Having more choices means I spend more time looking for something and less time enjoying it. I would pay a premium to have someone else find what I want, so that I can spend the little free time I have to watch, not search.

5. Accuracy

Search results need to be correct! There's a really good Indian restaurant at the end of my road, but when I look on Google Maps I find it marked several streets away. I wonder how many people are Google Navigating their way to dinner and going hungry? Will there be the same problem with TV content searches?

6. Secure integration with other services

It'll need to manage my accounts - e.g. for social networks. I don't want to be logging in here, there and everywhere, again and again. And if it's managing my accounts, it needs to realise that several people use my TV, and give me confidence that it's holding my account details securely.

7. Progressive download

I have a relatively fast broadband connection, but it's not so fast during peak hours, such as in the evening when I want to watch TV. Services need to adapt to different network conditions if they're to reach a wide audience.

Progressive download is a great leveller. With a fast connection you get a true on-demand service with near-instant playback, and if the connection is too slow you may have to wait a while, but at least it's still possible to use the service, and the playback quality is not compromised.

Adaptive bitrate streams are another option, but if I pay to watch an HD movie, I won't be happy if it descends to webcam-level video during busy periods.

So, what does the market think? Will Google TV go mainstream?

TV ad revenues under threat

There was a great article in yesterday’s Observer that looked at how viewers are increasingly calling the shots in terms of how they consume television, and how this in turn is shaping how the industry generates revenues from advertising.

The premise of the piece argued that although TV still plays a massive part in our lives, audiences are becoming fragmented thanks to the likes of YouTube, MySpace and Google. Television schedules will become obsolete as people can now watch TV when they want and on the medium of their choice, and this will have a massive impact on the ability to generate advertising revenue. The journalist went on to cite how ‘TV’s share of the global advertising market dropped this year for the first time since its inception’ and outlined a number of ways in which TV has can claw back the lost ad revenue.

Some of these have their merits, a couple of others less so. But one option overlooked was using the user interface, or menu, to host advertisements. However people consume TV – via mobile, downloaded from the internet, or the old fashioned front room / sofa way – there will always be a menu used to navigate through the choices. As TV schedules get more personalised, it stands to reason that menus will do so as well, so what is there to prevent targeted advertising around those menus?

At ANT we provide user interfaces for around 70 per cent of the world’s IPTV market, and have recently made the push into the wider digital media world, precisely because of the reasons outlined in the article. TV viewing is changing and the advertising industry urgently needs to change with it, and we believe that using the user interface could be a real solution to this dilemma.