The Race To Be Your TV

Worry not. This is not the one-more-article reviewing the various TV products launched recently – Apple TV, Google TV and other already out there like TiVo.

A few years back somebody predicted that TV will die. Will it really? I say NO. At least not for the next 2 decades. Just see how much money is being put into TV – tens of billions of dollars. This is just the beginning! And none other is investing this money than Apple and Google just to name a few.

The question should be – Will Cable Die? I would say YES! The evidence is very simple – see the cable companies. Do they provide only TV cable to homes? No. They basically provide a fiber-optic cable, which can do a number of things besides cable TV. Do you sense something – Yes, it is called Transition. This may not be the paradigm shift but definitely it is a shift.

The time in the shift right now is critical, because the next few months or years will decide whether it actually is a shift or not. Lets not play the guessing game. The boom of number of TV products spell like a birth of a new era in TV history. This definitely is going to change the way we watch TV for a time being for sure.

Until now the TV used to define the type of content you viewed on it. If you wanted to watch a high definition, theatre experience movie you needed a TV like that. But now the content will define the type of TV you have. I am talking about the internet based TVs that will spring out in the market in the coming months. And believe me, a lot more companies will jump into this bandwagon shortly, because nobody wants to miss the show.

Think about this – Intel is investing billions for TV chipsets. Sony already has a Google TV Set out in the market that includes a HDTV itself and the Google TV product, which would stream the content from the internet.

The Era of Content

As I said above, the future of TV will be dictated by content. People will not just demand more content but also quality content, which can be tailored, to their needs. The market is too nascent at this stage to predict the right mix of the product. This is the time companies are trying a mix-n-match solution for their products, aiming or rather predicting the future based on their product mix. But definitely Content will be the King.

-iM