The digital content appliance (DCA) category has largely been a non-starter in mainstream terms, marked by far more failures than successes. And the thud of GoogleTV officially entering the market place won’t likely change this fact anytime soon.
Most products designed to connect the Internet, PC and TV over the past several years have died on the vine, with only market leaders Roku and Apple having achieved what can at best be called moderate success. Indeed, shipments are barely over a million units annually—mere pocket change in consumer electronics terms.
Business, not technology, is the primary sticking point keeping this market in “start up” mode. Content owners, for the most part, are hanging on to current relationships with traditional pay TV suppliers for their high-value content. The relative success of Apple TV and Roku/Netflix are attributable to deals they could secure for mainstream content. Content providers certainly aren’t giving Google any special treatment as the platform has received poor technical marks (This week Google asked TV makers to delay launch of products) and several snubs from TV content owners.
The story is far from over. Despite the dramatic declarations that the internet is taking over the TV, the internet TV experiment is only starting. Stay tuned. Much, much more to come.
