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Google Does Interactive TV 
By: Mr. Frog 2006-06-12 Last week, Google presented a research paper which supplied an amazing glimpse of its thinking on the future of media. Titled "Social- and Interactive-Television Applications... ...Based on Real-Time Ambient-Audio Identification," Google's proposed system would marry television, radio, and other conventional media platforms with the Web in a way that will revolutionize media consumption and advertising as we know it. The truly amazing thing about Google's system, however, isn't its world-changing vision, which has been shared by Old Media barons for years. The core of its genius is in its simplicity, which means that its revolutionary objectives can be achieved at current levels of computing power using available bandwidth. How Google's Interactive TV System Works The key to the system is the audio track that has been an integral part of all media since 1929 (the dawn of "talking pictures). The system works by sampling the ambient audio produced by a television or radio through a PC's omnidirectional microphone, converting this sample into a distinctive "audio fingerprint," and relaying it to a server containing a library of such samples. After comparing the supplied audio fingerprint to existing samples, the system is able to identify what the user is watching, and serve up complementary interactivity through a conventional Web browser. Such interactivity can come in many forms, including: 1. Personalized Information Layers which appear in the browser window containing information related to the programming being consumed. The paper supplies an example of such a layer: "while watching a news segment on Tom Cruise, a fashion layer might provide information on what designer clothes and accessories the presented celebrities are wearing." Such layers are only feasible when an audio fingerprint already exists for a given media segment, which makes them useless for live news broadcasts. Still, as the paper notes, more than half of CNN's content is repeated, and much of TV programming (especially popular sitcoms such as Seinfeld) has likely run several times. Personalized Information Layers can contain pure/organic information related to the consumed media, or sponsored content. As the paper notes, "content providers or advertisers might bid for specific television segments. For example, local theaters or DVD rental stores might bid on audio from a movie trailer."Google's paper describes a complete system which has already been tested and has been judged to operate successfully, although it's clearly in pre-Beta stage. Still, it shows how deeply Google has thought about how its various technologies can be applied toward the problem of indexing, moneterizing, and integrating "old media" content. Given how hard "old media" empires pushed back against Google for its Google Print program (and to a lesser extent for Google News), Google seems to have realized that the best way to add add value to broadcast and film assets is by using a non-infringing means such as "audio fingerprinting" (audio fingerprinting does not record an actual copy of program audio but merely produces an abstracted descriptor layer, a technique which should shield it from the inevitable claim of infringement that is likely to come from the broadcast industry). Some online commentators have characterized Google's proposed system as "Orwellian" insofar that it does require listening into what's happening in one's media room, but these concerns are misplaced (Google's system does not transmit any recorded audio, just a compressed, encoded statistical sample of the audio which the paper claims cannot be decoded by eavesdroppers). At any time, users will be able to either mute the microphone or uninstall the client software, which will likely be supplied as a small applet or perhaps a toolbar. For marketers, Google's system is tremendously exciting, because it serves as a bridge between the worlds of conventional media interactive media, combining the best features of both worlds. Many advertisers will be especially thrilled by the prospect of being able to dynamically price the price they pay broadcasters to run ads based on a much larger sample than Nielsen provides, in real time, with a much bigger window into the unique behavioral, demographic, and psychographic profiles of such an audience. Best of all, unlike prior plans for interactive television systems relying on expensive, unproven technologies, Google's system will likely work with the hardware already widely deployed in millions of homes. Of course, one must not lose sight of the fact that Google's system is a pre-Alpha research system, and may bear little or no resemblance to the one that is eventually deployed. It represents just one possible vision of the future in which Google will play a part, so your future may look completely different. You can learn more about Google's experimental system here. Tags: Google Add to Del.icio.us | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web | Furl About the Author: Mr. Frog is a leading Search industry visionary. Mr. Frog is a member of the Did-it Search Marketing team which accompanies him to most major marketing conferences. |
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