The internet has been abuzz lately with news that Google would begin offering television programming and more through it's Google Video site. While this is a very cool move and fulfills the prophecy speculation provoked by the availability of the Everybody Hates Chris pilot a few months ago, there's more to consider. After all, as this article by Robert Cringly states, Google doesn't make a move without considering how this affects it's two main operations of search and advertising.

So what might be Google's long term plans for television? Cringly engages in some logical theorizing to answer this question. He points out that Google has been having discussions with every major broadcast network about video distribution. Far from this being in advance of encroachment on their territory, Cringly thinks Google wants to make sure that everyone involved makes as much money as possible. This can happen by combining TV viewing with search and keyword advertising. In pointing out the flaws of current TV advertising he says (and this almost made me spurt Coke out my nose) that the current TV ad model is profitable despite the fact that almost no one watching is in the market for any particular advertised product at the time the ad shown. (That sound you're hearing is Joe Jaffe nodding his head so hard it's actually affecting the jet stream.)

To cure this, and make the networks and Google a lot of money, ads based on viewing habits could be delivered dynamically. In addition to that ads would be searchable so if you were looking for something you could find it at the push of a couple buttons. That too would be factored into your history and taken into account the next time the service delivered an ad. The ads then become more profitable because people are actually finding things they're interested in and making purchases or decisions based on them. This all depends on IP-TV becoming a reality, but with Google getting into wi-fi and other infrastructure and networks already working on IP solutions the two worlds could come together nicely, just in time to make digital TV irrelevant.

[Cool pic via LoGoogle]