Google And I Agree On One Thing: TV Is Not Dead
It’s good to see that I am not the only one who thinks people are crazy when they say that TV is dead. TV is not dead. People kept telling me they don’t watch TV anymore and only use their computer for video. What are they watching? Nearly every single show I watch is not available on the Internet today, in any form. TV is the only place I can see it. Yes, other means of distribution are going to affect the TV platform, but people are not abandoning the TV in favor of video online like people make it sound.
And to date, those creating content for the web are not creating the type of content that I personally want to watch. And even if they were, can I get it in HD? No. Can I watch it on a large screen? No. Can I easily watch it on my computer with someone else? No. When I travel and am in a hotel, is there a computer there? No. Can I TiVo it? No. Can the Internet scale like TV? No. The TV and the PC (or Mac in my case) are not the same platforms, showcasing the same content, or providing the same kind of experience.
An article in Business Week recently said, "when the line between the TV and Internet will blur…" and it’s a comment you hear all the time. The line will never blur between them. They offer different experiences, on different devices, one via a closed network, one open. Yes, they will have some cross over, but they will never "blur". No one will even confuse their PC for their TV or vise versa.
And it’s good to see that Google agrees. Vincent Dureau, head of TV technology for Google in a keynote address at the Internet Television Technology Conference this week said that, "on the surface it looks like TV is dead, but I believe there is actually a bright future for television." EETimes.com has details of the keynote here. Some of their coverage said: Every minute six hours of video is uploaded to Google’s YouTube service. What’s more, "every day 95 percent of the YouTube library is watched at least once," Dureau said. That implies there is a broad, but fragmented audience for a wide variety of content. "You need to make the long tail of this content available, and the tail is very long," he said.
But I do disagree with Dureau when he says that the biggest problem right now is that users can’t find the content they want to watch on the Internet and it’s no surprise he says that search is the way to solve this problem. For me, it’s not trying to find the content online that’s the problem. The problem is that the content does not exist online. And telling me that there might be other content that is "similar" to the content I am looking for is not an answer.
If I like to watch MacGyver, which I do, then I want to see MacGyver shows online and not something that someone created that may be similar to it. I want to see that specific show. So search is not going to help me there. The Internet is not yet ready for TV as we know it and in my eyes, there is no such thing as "Internet TV" even though it is a phrase widely used in the industry.