Another week saw another new TV product released. This time, it was Google’s turn who announced a forthcoming ‘Android TV’ Set Top Box. This follows Amazon’s recent Fire TV, of which Android TV will resemble, except the voice-recognition and that it’s Google and likely knows a lot about you. I do share Steve Smith‘s confusion over Google’s move, given it will run directly against the Google Chromecast, which while only a first generation device has been a game changer in my household. Gigaom go into greater depth here about Google’s ultimate goal with the new TV product.
Sticking with Google, the company announced a surprising used-car dealer tactic by selling its Google Glass for $1,500 for one day only – this Tuesday (April 15th, which maybe coincidentally is US Tax Day). I am sure these will sell quickly, despite the price.
Google hope to attract doctors to test Google Glass this week
On the Music service front, this week was Samsung’s turn with the announcement of a new deal with Deezer, which will be provided for free for six months to Europeans who purchase the new Samsung Galaxy S5 phone. Of course free music services (from Spotify, Rdio, etc) begs the questions as to how musicians are supposed to make money.
In news that surprised no one in US Radio, Nielsen Audio announced at last week’s NAB conference in Las Vegas that they will integrate broadcast and webcast (streaming) ratings. Only a few technical details were released, announcing that the listening data will include the device (web player, mobile app, etc), the listener attributes (age, location either in-home or out-of home), and importantly de-duplication between broadcast and webcast. Triton Ratings have already moved into the local webcast metrics reporting and their monthly reports confirm the gigantic lead in streaming that Pandora has built in recent years. It will be fascinating to see how Nielsen plays in tandem between traditional broadcast clients and new webcast clients, a topic I had blogged about here a couple of years ago when Arbitron, who were later bought out by Nielsen, first announced its Total Audience Measurement metric.
Finally, I’d like to recommend a thoughtful piece from Medium about how the newspaper industry is thinking how best to archive yesterday’s news. And if you are history buff with another spare moment, I would wholeheartedly recommend a quick browse at the stunning NewYork TimesMachine.
How People Use Media 