Google and Sage TV: What Went Awry with In House Tech?
June 22, 2011
I am not into television and videos like some of the goslings here in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. We took a field trip to the big city when the Google TV became available. I was baffled. I like reruns of Lawrence Welk and some sports programs. The rest of the programming does not resonate. I still like printed books.
I read “Google Revives TV Buzz with SageTV Buy.” I understand that Google had to reverse the poor showing of its original factory. The idea of buying a company in business since 1999 had not occurred to me. Google has a bundle of patent applications and technical papers about rich media. I worked on a monograph about Google’s rich media efforts, but I shifted gears in order to write “The New Landscape of Enterprise Search.” I am glad I did. Google’s product for the masses did not excite the goslings, and, according to the article, not too many other people either. I noted this passage:
Google announced that it had transformed television last year, but TV somehow remained stubbornly un-transformed. People are still perfectly happy to use YouTube, and even watch it on their TVs, but didn’t flock to unify the entire experience under Google’s guiding hand. Additionally, the paucity of devices hasn’t embedded Google TV into the consumer electronics world.
What strikes the Math Club crowd as cool does not connect with a large segment of television content consumers.
The question, I want to capture is, “With Google’s significant investment in rich media, why has the company been unable to gain traction?”
I have a notion that Google does have high value technology for rich media. However, the company’s management set up makes buying a company easier than figuring out which in house technology to productize. Apple, on the other hand, seems to be able to generate gallons of lemonade no matter how sour the music, motion picture, and TV industry seem to be.
With Google pushing Sage TV to center stage, how long will advertisers feel okay with Sage TV’s ability to skip commercials? Google lives by ad revenues. Happy advertisers are, therefore, important.
Stephen E Arnold, June 22, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
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