Google is taking on industry rivals in the race to bring television online

People have been debating the value of YouTube for years. Some predicted Google wasted billions on something that could never make money. If recent rumours are true, the naysayers may soon be eating their words. The search-engine behemoth has apparently stepped up its efforts to deliver an alternative to cable television. The company is competing against Amazon, Yahoo and Dish Network to acquire Hulu, the online video site owned by Walt Disney, News Corp. and NBC Universal. Google’s initial offer far surpassed those of the other bidders, according to AllThingsD, a technology news website. This could be part of Google’s strategy for acquiring original video content to upload to YouTube, speculated Business Insider, a business blog, which also quoted two anonymous industry sources saying the tech giant is spending as much as $500 million shopping around for premium titles to boost its online video offering. Google also recently bought Motorola Mobility Holdings, which, among other things, makes cable set-top boxes, devices that allow users to access the Web via TV sets.

It’s all proof that the technology giant is gearing up to battle rivals like Netflix and Apple in the race to reinvent television. Its most formidable weapon, industry watchers agree, is YouTube’s unrivalled popularity.

Eric Schmidt, Google‘s executive chairman, is likely to mention Facebook, Apple and other competitors outside the search realm as he faces a grilling Wednesday during an antitrust Senate hearing on Capitol Hill, according to a report.

Politico, which got an advanced copy of Schmidt’s testimony, revealed that the former Google CEO is planning to emphasize the hyper-competitive nature of online media.

““We aim to provide relevant answers as quickly as possible, and our product innovation and engineering talent deliver results that we believe users like, in a world where the competition is only one click away,” reads Schmidt’s prepared statement. The Senate plans to stream the testimony at 2 p.m. ET.

The emphasis on competitors is an obvious retort for Google, which is being investigated by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee on the grounds that Google may be using its heft in search marketing to freeze out rivals. If pressed, Schmidt (pictured) is likely to point out that Google competes not only with Microsoft and Yahoo on the search front, but with Apple, Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is now ranked number four in unique U.S. visitors with 162.4 million for August, behind Google’s 183.4 million, according to comScore. Apple, which competes with Google on the smartphone front, claimed 75 million visitors, while Twitter had 33.9 million.

Aside from the competition angle, Schmidt is likely to play up Google’s effect on the economy. The company claims to generate $64 billion in economic activity for small businesses.

Jonathan Rubin, an attorney with Rubin PLLC who specializes in antitrust cases, says that citing Facebook is irrelevant to the conversation.

“I don’t see Google’s search as a direct competition to Facebook,” Rubin says. “It’s sort of semi-competition.”

Nevertheless, Rubin believes the government’s case against Google is weak since the company doesn’t charge for its services, which takes competitive pricing off the table. Rubin says that lacking the pricing angle, the government would have to make the case that Google is sabotaging rival services like Bing. Successfully arguing that Google is favoring its own properties is even murkier ground, Rubin says, since Google’s search product hinges on providing the best results and being an “honest broker” (a.k.a. disinterested intermediary). That case, which the government will advance with testimony from the CEOs of Yelp and NexTag, is also not a clear-cut violation of antitrust laws, Rubin says.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/09/21/google-antitrust-senate-hearin/

The Government is to put greater pressure on Google and other search engines to support it in the fight against online piracy.

At the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention tomorrow (Wednesday), the Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, is expected to call on search engines to make life more difficult for internet pirates.  Hunt is expected to warn that if the industry does not co-operate, that the Government will seek to legislate via the new Communication Bill. Continue Reading

It’s not as though Google wants to buy Hulu just for Kansas City.

Still, the fact that it might snatch up the video streaming service hints that the search giant wants to be more than your tour guide to the Web. It needs to make sure the Internet, soon to be delivered to Kansas City at unheard-of speeds, has enough entertainment.

Sure, Google long ago bought up YouTube. But after a while, its videos of kittens being cute and teenage boys passing gas feels a little, well, lacking.

Hulu would give Google a constantly refreshed catalog of professionally produced shows from the old-school television networks. That could give the Mountain View, Calif., company a running start on a cable-like package of TV channels.

By not just leading consumers to content but preparing it for them, Google would be making a slight shift in its billionaire-making business model. Continue Reading

Google‘s Eric Schmidt was visiting the other side of the Atlantic this weekend, and during his speaking engagements he waxed lyrical about Google TV. Very lyrical. He pronounced, “Virtually all the television manufacturers on their very high end will eventually adopt Google TV.” He also suggested a five-year timetable and then revealed that Google TV will be getting its British debut in about six months.

Considering that since its 2010 debut in the U.S. Google TV hasn’t taken off at all, and one of its biggest launch manufacturing partners, Logitech, scrapped its inventory due to poor sales, it’s a strange move. Continue Reading