Last week at its I/O Conference, Google made an announcement about one of its most ambitious and innovative products – Google TV. The company says that the driving force behind this product is that the current television lacks the capability to connect the viewer to the web. Therefore, it seems appropriate that Google chose the tag line TV meets web, Web meets TV for its latest offering.

How does it work?

Google TV promises to offer a new experience to viewers that combine the TV with the freedom and power of the internet. It has built-in Google Chrome to allow you to surf your favorite websites. It runs on Android, Google’s open source operating system which is increasingly gaining popularity for mobile devices and tablets.

The hardware partners for this project are Sony, Logitech and Intel – they’ll collaborate with Google to put Google TV inside of televisions, Blu-ray players and companion boxes. The device will support Adobe Flash and Adobe is expected to develop a Flash-variant to enhance the user experience for Google TV users.

Navigation

It uses the Google Search technique to allow users to easily navigate between television channels, websites, apps, shows and movies in a hassle-free manner. Google has taken the on-demand TV concept to an altogether new level and plans to use the lessons learnt from Android to iron out the navigation kinks in Google TV.

Ease of navigation and user experience play a crucial role in TV viewing as well as internet browsing. Google knows this and it claims that Google TV experience will be a joyride for customers.

When does it arrive?

Google TV arrives this fall and will be available for sale on BestBuy stores nationwide. There’s no official word on the pricing as yet.

What does it mean for Online Marketers?

I believe that Google TV will be a game changer innovation for online marketers. Google is a pioneer in marketing, be it Google AdWords or Google AdSense. It is one company which understands the online marketing business better than anyone else in the world. Google TV offers a unique combo of content generation and content consumption; therefore it offers massive potential for online marketers. The company believes that Google TV will redefine the complete ball game of how TV-ads currently work.

Throw-in Google’s bestselling AdWords and AdSense and it’s a dream come true for online marketers. It represents a radical change in how you reach your customers and providing an enriched full-web experience to users.

Competitors

The announcement of Google TV has surely set the alarm bells ringing amongst competitors who include TiVo, Boxee and more importantly, Apple. While Apple has always projected AppleTV as a hobby and has abandoned the project, Google has aggressive plans to make some serious money out of it.

TiVo is a costly affair and the company has been engaged in numerous lawsuits off-late. Boxee is free and I’m sure that it is one of the inspirations behind Google taking this road.

Microsoft also made a similar attempt to capture the TV market but failed dismally. IMO, Google looks to be much better prepared than both Microsoft and Apple to succeed in this rather challenging arena.

I personally believe that Google is all set to redefine the future of television for good. Fall is not too far and I’m eager to see if Google TV lives up to my expectations. The countdown to fall has now begun!