Google TV is now out there in the wild. There’s no indication of how it’s selling just yet, but my hunch is that like early Android, it may be some time before sales really take off. That shouldn’t be too surprising considering that the platform is built on top of Android. But there aren’t a lot of apps yet that are tailored for these new devices. They need more. And they know the way to get them. Free giveaways!
As they’ve announced on their Google TV blog today, the search giant is giving away 10,000 Google TV units to developers. Yes, 10,000.
The give-away started this morning at the Adobe MAX conference where they dished out 3,000 units. And it will continue over the next couple of weeks as Google will patrol the Google Code forums to look for developers who sound even remotely interested in developing for the platform. Or you can submit a request to get a unit for development.
Says Google:
As we’ve always said, the coolest thing about Google TV is that we don’t even know what the coolest thing about it will be. The experience is in the hands of its users and developers, and everyone is invited. Come play.
The Google TV unit being given away is the Logitech Revue, a device which normally sells for $300.
Sadly, this giveaway is U.S.-only for the time being. And yes, they want some sort of proof that you are actually a developer that plans to make an app for the platform. I’m thinking about learning Java to build a solid fart app for the platform to get a free unit myself.
While yes it would be an amazing feat of hypocrisy if Apple actually advertised against the search term “Sex Game Apps” that is not what is happening here, even though this specific Google Ads juxtaposition is worth noting due to Apple’s stringent attitude towards featuring sexually explicit materials in the App Store.
So what is actually going on? Crunchgear’s Greg Kumparak has a pretty solid theory; Due to the fact that Google won’t advertise for actual sex sites (only sex education-related sites pass muster), when a user searches for blacklisted stuff like “Sex Game Apps” the Google AdWords (and/or Automatic Match) algorithm treats the word “sex” as invisible and focuses on serving up ads triggered by the whitelisted keywords “Game Apps” in bold. Hence, why the iPod touch ad shows up above despite not having any mention of sex. The same trick works for “Nazi Game Apps” and myriad other racy iterations.
While AdWords loopholes like this are nothing new (try “Android Apps Boobs” if you’d like the Android compatible version), Apple’s inadvertent advertising against people searching for something the App Store explicitly doesn’t allow is enough to at least consider a change in policy, on either Google or Apple’s part.
Update: Search expert Danny Sullivan more precisely explains what is going on here in the comments.
“It’s not that “sex” is being treated as invisible or is on a blacklist. It’s because Apple is buying the phrase “game apps” on a broad-match basis — which means anything plus those words will trigger that ad. For example, search for “i hate apple game apps,” and voila — there’s the ad. The fact that the words “games” and “apps” are bolded tell you what they bought.”
Moments ago on its earnings call, Google took an opportunity to talk about the success of its latest products. The first in line: Google Instant, the totally revamped search interface that Google launched last month, which displays search results as soon as you begin typing (rather than requiring the user to hit ‘enter’ or click the search button).
At the time of the launch, there was much speculation on what impact Instant would have on Google’s bottom line — was it designed to boost the number of ads displayed? Well, now we have an answer: Jonathan Rosenberg , SVP Product Management at Google, said on the call that “from a revenue standpoint impact [of Google Instant] has been minimal.” He added that it’s also expensive from a resource standpoint. They launched it, he says, “because it’s so much better”. As evidence of this, Rosenberg said that according to Google’s data, the more people use Google Instant, the more they like it.
Rosenberg then launched into some stats around AdWords to prove that Google does in fact care about money. But, for now at least, Google says Instant is all about the user experience, and not the bottom line.
