Media Playground 2010: Google TV – “it’s exciting”

“Google TV… it’s a cool thing”, said YouTube’s Anna Bateson at MediaTel Group’s Media Playground 2010 event today.

Despite claiming not to know any details of the new service, YouTube’s marketing director for media & platforms EMEA explained what Google TV was about to a room full of eager delegates at the Broadcast in a multi-platform world seminar.

“Google TV is an open platform, built on android.  The cool thing about it is it sits in front of your TV screen, unlike other services, which have their own channel.  Essentially, it can look for anything and everything on your TV – if you search for one thing, it will look through your TV guide, check your PVR, look through on-demand content and look on the internet to try and find the right content for you.

“It gives users the choice to pick [how and when they want to view content, or find out information about content, or look at products related to content].

“It also has chat, and video chat, which is exciting,” she added.

However, Bateson admitted that it’s not for everybody.  “Not everyone wants to search for TV content in that way, but for others it is very exciting,” she added.