Google TV Is A Revolution

A while back I gave my bedroom TV away to a friend.  It was a nice TV I owned for a number of years and he had no TV at all so it seemed like the thing to do. Recently I have been toying with the idea of getting a bedroom TV again. The reason I gave it away before had everything to do with the fact that I wasn't often using the bedroom TV (so not a huge sacrefice). But a few recent development have made me think about getting a bedroom TV again.

Before I dive into the geekery that is my purchase, I thought I would pose a question I've been thinking about. Why do we call a TV a TV set? Set of what exactly? Tubes (these days... what... pixels?) Anyway... I digress.

Recently I've been getting into building applications for the Android mobile operating system. Specifically, I've been involved in Flash development for a while and with the AIR for ANDROID project, I've been able to learn cool ways to extend my Flash development onto my Evo phone.  So that is pretty cool. Which leads me to my TV purchase.

The 32" Sony TV is running the Google TV Android Operating System. Adobe Flash comes pre-installed on the TV along with a number of very cool apps like the vimeo app and the CNN and MSNBC app. You get a full Chrome internet browser as well as a host of features which integrates the internet with cable television. In addition to that there are some apps which include full length feature films like Crackle and NetFlix (Crackles is free while NetFlix requires a subscription).  There are a number of other cool apps but this (to me at least) isn't what makes Google TV a Revolution. It is a revolution for two reasons.

Google TV has teamed up with Adobe to bring about a toolset called AIR for TV.  This means that people can begin to deliver new custom applications to "TV sets" that either have Google TV built in or that have a connected Google TV appliance. What this means is, people will be able to download TV apps that will deliver on-demand HD video content streaming from the web. Imagine home-made TV shows delivered via subscription OR better yet, home-made NETWORKS with a bunch of new grass-roots driven zero-infrastructure productions with almost no overhead? When my generation thinks about TV we think about ABC/NBC/CBS.  My niece and nephew might add Nick or PBS or TNT or Comedy Central to that mix.  Current networks that are surviving on a stream of do-it-yourself unscripted reality-tv shows might find they can suddenly produce themselves for far less than they do today.  This bodes well for everyone.  This is youtube on steroids!

Which brings me to point #2: content will explode into new directions with more focus and well targeted subscription audiences. The future of TV is obviously the internet. And content like shows and film shorts and learning will be accessed via subscription. I remember dreaming about this when I was a kid.  Imagine a future where you pay for the channels/subscriptions you want and not a bunch of content you don't care about.  This isn't happening quite yet on Google TV, but it is completely possible.  It's just a matter of time.