GoogleTV, AppleTV and the Battle For The Living Room

An anonymous reader pointed us to an article talking about Google TV and AppleTV challenging the major networks and taking their place in your living room. It'll be a tough battle, amusingly waged on cable company wires in many major markets.

Comments

Doesn't matter

[qsqueeq]

My wife still gets the remote.

Lesser evil

[guyminuslife]

Hmmm. So do I want a locked-down, shiny piece of Jobsified crap, or do I want a television that watches me? [insert pre-emptive "In Soviet Russia..." here]

Oh, who am I kidding, I want them both.

Apple is out to hunt bigger game than cable

[joeflies]

It looks like that Apple TV is out to replace cable companies, but I think that's only a superficial view of the long term plan. There's been no announcement to date that Apple plans to offer any channel that appears on cable .. rather they go through online content providers. They complete skipped the major gripe of cable, i.e. to offer a "subscribe to channels you want ala carte", and changed the game to "buy what episodes you want to see, on demand".

Which leads to the question .. so what role do the networks play in the grand scheme of things ... NBC / ABC / CBS / FOX are not all developing their own content, they buy that content from a show producer. If Apple develops enough mindshare and living rooms, you don't need NBC to order the episodes of a new show, Apple can buy it directly from the show's producers.

This could be a great play to cut out all the middlemen, not just the cable company or the satellite monthly fee, but the entire tv network system as well ... it's possibly the biggest change in the business of TV in 50 years, and frankly none of the TV networks seem to notice yet.

Re:Net neutrality

[webheaded]

And if you're in an area where both companies do it?

I get tired about hearing about great old capitalism and choices in a market that essentially HAS NO CHOICES. I'm all for letting the market decide, but some people seem determined to fit a square peg in a round hole. It doesn't work in every single market. Stop parroting that crap and think about it for a minute. I mean seriously think. It's entirely possible that BOTH companies offering these services are simply going to dictate to you what you're allowed to do with their service and there is not a single thing you can do it. In other words, you can't vote for your wallet if there's no one there to vote for.