What if you could watch more than YouTube videos on your TV set?

As you already know, more and more TV set models (and I mean LCDs) come with a new option: browsing the internet, capability to play YouTube videos etc. No touchscreens yet, but probably soon we’ll see that just as well. Of course, that kind of technology is not yet cheap enough for the regular people to buy. So those TVs are still pretty expensive. But the future looks bright.

The Google TV concept

When you say Google, you say search. Then, you say AdSense. And then you say YouTube. As we soon found out, Google’s YouTube launched XL, an interface designed especially for TV sets capable of playing YouTube videos. I took about three minuts to check it out and I can control its functions using the arrow keys from my keyboard. That means you will be able to use the arrow keys from your remote control.

Now, here’s the actual point: think about Google News and imagine all the news sources they use. Press agencies, newspapers etc. And then think about how Google could use them as sources for online video news. Basically, you can watch anything that might be in your interest. Would you like to see the latest news about Iraq? Just search for Iraq news and watch straight from your TV. Wanna know what’s going on in politics? Just search for it.

In terms of editorial

The best part should be the newswires. Of course, that means Google would need an editorial team with a few coordinators and one or more editors-in-chief. People that are able to say: this news will come first when the user is going to click on this channel. People able to think in terms of news priority.

What’s really beautiful about the Internet is that you control it. If you have internet on your TV, you control what you want to see, and it’s not the TV station that controls your news options. So you could actually choose what news you want to watch, you could be able to see related news or even to see different stories, provided by different sources, on the same topic or about the same event.

Why should Google need editors? Well, that’s because people will always have this need of finding what’s new, what’s going on right now, what happened in the last few hours. The editors could even provide a summary of the most important news in one minute. When you open the channel, Google News TV starts with a summary. Click “1″ on your remote to view the first story, click “2″ for the second or move on to the newswire. What’s the newswire? Well, something like CNN.

Speaking about usability

I love the idea of watching the news on my wide screen LCD TV, with the video running on the left, with related news in the top right corner and a “more news from the same source” link list just below, and then news suggestions or whatever. Being able to use tags would be even cooler and, of course, being able to select and mark favourite channels and news. Even more, Google News TV could actually have a “best news” list chosen by viewers by just marking them as favourite.

There are thousands of possibilities. Watching news from CNN, Reuters, BBC, all in the same channel. Choosing the best for the viewer. That’s something no television channel will ever have.

Making money

When we talk about Internet, we talk about so many forms of advertising. First of all, Google has already implemented contextual advertising in YouTube videos. That could be implemented as well and it would be really cool if you could actually click on a button on your remote control and a new tab would open and allow you to see the info you might be interested in. That could be one, using contextual in video. Some sort of pay per click.

Second, if I’m interested in technology, the second news Google will serve me on a wire would be a payed news from a tech producer. We’re talking about a new concept of pay per view. The advertiser pays for each single view. It actually pays for each viewer, so the advertisers can actually measure their reach and they can actually have real demographics.

Third, traditional TV ads could be used (though an ad shouldn’t be longer than 10 seconds, we’re talking about a hybrid model, something between TV and online). And people could actually pay to remove this kind of traditional TV advertising. Of course, more and more methods of paying for content could be used.

What about revenues for the news sources?

Google could pay news sources like CNN or Reuters on a shared revenue model, for example, for each view. Publishers that provide the video news could be able to insert their own ads inside the news they provide, or they could even have a dedicated department for PR news. Like the technology example above, the advertiser could pay CNN to provide video advertorials in their online news bulletins.

And regarding the contextual model, publishers could even sell ads on their news using some sort of a dedicated AdWords account, while advertisers could choose the news where they want their ad to be displayed. More popular the news, more expensive the ad.

But Google already has YouTube…

In my opinion, Google should keep YouTube as it is: user generated content. Google TV should stick to the news, while YouTube should be for entertainment. But here comes the fun part: while you can pay to see a movie in cinemas, you could just as well pay to see a movie on your wide screen LCD TV at home. Two or three weeks after launching a movie in cinemas, producers could upload it on YouTube and let the users watch it from home. Instead of paying, let’s say, 5 dollars for a cinema ticket, they could pay 6 dollars to watch it from home and 15 dollars to download it after one month.

What does that mean? Well, that means less wasted money on movie distribution platforms (you don’t have to pay for DVDs and you don’t have to waste the time and the money on writing the movies on DVDs, for example), less expenses on sharing revenues with retailers, etc. Last but not least, you can use people’s lazyness to earn money.

So where’s the point?

It’s right here. I’m ending this topic right now, but not before I say that I find this a win-win-win situation. Why three times win? Because Google wins, publishers win and, most important, the user wins.

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Foto source: I. Z. Reloaded.