April 3rd, 2007
Google to show ads from space
Today Google announced a new partnership with EchoStar dish network to deliver relevant television advertisements to viewers. Not only will Google attempt to distribute commercials that may be more interesting, they also plan to help advertisers measure their ad effectiveness — something that is typically difficult to do through this medium.
This recent announcement seems quite similar to something I wrote about in 2005. An Internet-connected satellite receiver could be used in some interesting ways — especially one linked to Google. Depending on the terms of the deal between Google and EchoStar, maybe some of these ideas are in the works?
A DVR that lets you "Log In" with your Google Account before you begin your television watching would allow Google to serve up relevant ads based on: the program you are watching, your search history, the type of emails you have received in the past 24 hours (excluding spam hopefully), or anything else Google can track.
Imagine the possibilities… You are watching Google Satellite TV through your "internet ready" Google DVR:
1) You receive a new Gmail and it pops up automatically on your TV (if you choose to see new messages of course).
2) A ticker at the top of the screen shows recent news that interests you… or better yet, it shows new items from my Google Reader!
3) A more personalized TV experience which will serve up relevant commercials on commercial breaks based on your interests.This is just the beginning, a service like this could easily tie into Google Talk, Google Base, Google Calendar… the possibilities are endless. Technically speaking, live television could be delivered by satellite and recorded programs may be stored on Google’s server (Google Video?) for convenient "on demand" playback from the comfort of your couch, laptop or video cell phone.
Though the possibilities are interesting, Google currently only admits to dealing with advertisements right now. They plan to use anonymized statistics gathered by set-top-boxes to provide more powerful and measurable metrics about actual viewership to advertisers.
Garett Rogers 
is employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the wireless industry.
See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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