Google TV Announced - How many TVs do we need?

http://www.techdigest.tv/hdtv/

Only last week Apple announced it’s newly revamped Apple TV, which will allow users to stream movies and TV shows through iTunes,  stream web based videos from Netflix and YouTube, and also connect to various Apple handheld devices using Airplay. Many critics have said that this is a me too approach, since similar options like Tivo and Roku are already available.

Earlier this year in May 2010, Google had demonstrated a service for accessing the internet and other applications on the television and indicated that it will be available sometime this year.  At the IFA consumer electronics trade show in Berlin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has reiterated its Google TV plans and said that the service will be available in the United States this autumn and worldwide in 2011.

Like the other players in the market, this service will be working with content providers for delivering content, and not be actually creating content. This just adds up to the list of me too services, although it’s more ambitious than others, and will eventually be available to consumers as part of their default TV experience.

It looks like with Apple’s announcement last week and the Logitech Revue set-top box (based around the Google TV experience) coming out this fall, Google had to launch its service during the fall season.

With quite a few existing players, and a whole lot of new players planning to bring the internet to the television, the battle for the $180 billion global TV advertising market is surely heating up.

 Source – Reuters, VentureBeat