Slashdot has the chew through, but I think this is utter speculation. Of course, I thought Gmail was a hoax. The original article which spawned this rumor is here, that piece*is* utter speculation.
Rumor O’ The Day: Google DVR
Slashdot has the chew through, but I think this is utter speculation. Of course, I thought Gmail was a hoax. The original article which spawned this rumor is here, that piece*is* utter speculation….
They would be chasing Murdoch’s people. Directv’s new DVR does not look to have the advanced features Slashdot is talking about but those features could come as an upgrade.
Google will do this IMO and by doing so will extend the search wars to our television. Advertisers will line up and bid up to get to their demo’s.
Directv DVR explained;
www dot tvpredictions dot com/directvdvr082405.html
There is definitely some speculation here… any time you try and predict Google’s “next move” there will always be speculation involved. However, saying that this article is *pure* speculation is a bit overboard.
If you were to read the New York Times article that my article references, you will notice that Eric Schmidt has mentioned the possibility of television based advertising.
Here is an excerpt from the NY Times article:
Google already sells its text ads for many other sites on the Internet (including nytimes.com), and is also moving tentatively to sell the picture-based interactive advertising preferred by marketers who want to promote brands rather than immediately sell products. Now it is preparing to extend its technology to nearly every other medium, most significantly television. It is looking toward a world of digital cable boxes and Internet-delivered television that will allow it to show commercials tailored for each viewer, as it does now for each Web page it displays.
— and —
Mr. Schmidt acknowledges that as Google explores moving into television, it may well face a conflict between its core belief that advertising must be useful and the typical television commercial that is “based on feeling and emotion.”
I can clear this up… I mentioned to my friend who works on the storage back-end of Gmail that I built and PVR free of DRM and Microsoft software.
Since this was discussed in a crowded resturaunt and Google fanboys and rumor generators are everywhere, someone must have overheard the conversation and assumed that Google was working on a way to monetize free Linux based DVRs
We covered this a few weeks ago – Google have been recruiting people with experience in set top boxes, iTV, VOD, PVRs etc.
http://simonandrews.typepad.com/big_picture/2005/09/google_on_tv.html