Taking place parallel to advancements in digital media content delivery is development of the next generation of cable set-top boxes. While there have been a number of short-term solutions for getting online content to the TV, in the long run the cable box is stiil the best way. Google knows this and it’s only a matter of time before they’re involved.

Last year Google hired OpenTV CTO Vincent Dureau to lead their Television Technology group, and they have made no secret of its intention to become a major media/advertising company. The TV set its their last frontier. Access to the TV will enable them to build on their ad-targeting ability to make advertising across all mediums more efficient.

But access does not come cheap. MSOs have close relationships with the current leading set-top box manufacturers and want to maintain as much control over what’s inside those boxes as they can. As we have seen before, Google’s size puts it at a rare advantage, enabling them to exert real force to change industries. As they did with mobile, Google could bring about changes in the cable industry.

Tags: Goole Set-top box IPTV

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 5:47 pm and is filed under IPTV, editorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.