Just about everyone here in the office is a gadget hound.
We love reading up on the latest time sucking gizmos that seem to pop up daily. So, when it was announced that Google TV would soon be available for purchase, our own Digital Media Director, Matt Zumstein, decided he would take the plunge and buy one.
Below is Matt’s experience with Google TV:
I can’t remember the last time I was so excited about a new product coming out as I was with Google TV. A TV/box that could stream the Internet and allow consumers to interact and download any application in the Android store, what’s not to get excited about?
The first day it was available to the public I reached out to a buddy of mine at Google who granted me a 20% discount, even more reason to get excited. I ordered the Sony blue ray Google TV that night and counted the days until it arrived. My wife and I had already created plans to cut cable and stream directly from Hulu and CBS interactive.
The day it arrived, all I could think of was coming home and playing with my new toy. Setting it up was not difficult and took probably twenty minutes. I quickly jumped on Hulu only to get the dreaded error message:
“We see you are trying to access Hulu through Google TV. Hulu is not currently allowing streaming through Google TV but we are working hard to bring you Hulu Plus”.
As multiple obscenities left my mouth I realized the kids were in the other room and I needed to tone it down.
I quickly checked CBS.com, ABC.com & NBC.com only to receive the same error message. My wife and I looked at each other in disappointment but tried to stay optimistic. We went on TBS.com, TNT.com & HGTV.com and found videos we could stream; however the experience was not the same.
TNT videos minimize at every commercial break and you need to manually put back onto full screen.
We also checked out Youtube only to find the quality of the videos on an HDTV was poor at best. We even tried to stream from Fancast which a lot of bloggers were saying was the current work around.
Our first reaction was to return the product immediately since there was no value for us. But again we wanted to stay optimistic about a product I spent the last three weeks dreaming about. Realistically we knew that Google would not strike a deal with the major networks anytime in the near future. But we thought maybe we could justify our purchase with the app store.
Quickly we found out there was no app store, just 8-10 pre loaded applications (most of them paid apps).
While having Vevo as an app and being able to stream from Netflix was cool I couldn’t justify the $400 purchase to my wife or even to myself. It was time to return it.
I called Sony up and stated my case and let them know Google TV was blocked from all the major players. The first person I spoke with told me I could return it but I would have to eat the $10+ shipping cost. Maybe I was a little emotional from my recent disappointment but that was not the answer I was looking for.
Next I was told that I would need to speak with someone from Sony’s technical service department to confirm that the product was not as advertised. After being bounced around a couple departments I finally reached someone who could help me, but unfortunately my phone died and I had to start the process all over again. It was just one of those days.
Finally I spoke with someone at Sony but they swore they could stream Hulu, which I quickly correct by pointing them to several blog postings stating otherwise.
At last I convinced them it was false advertising when I asked them where I could stream the program “Community” which was advertised on all of the TV’s on their website.
Long story short, I spent about two and a half hours with at least five people in customer service and I think I am finally going to be able to save that $10 shipping cost I was so adamant on saving.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that the technology is present to stream anything on the web and even download apps specifically from the Android store (Google TV says coming in early 2011 now). The future versions of this product will definitely be something to get excited about, once all the major players are on board.
Personally I am going to wait till version 2.0 or 3.0 comes out before I take a risk on this again.
But until then I’m rating this product 2 out of 5 stars.
Posted in
interactive,
technology Tags:
communication,
customer service,
google,
googletv,
interactive,
internet,
sony,
television,
video,
youtube
Many of our clients have expressed an interest in learning more about social media. So we’ve compiled a recommended reading list.
· Books – ranked by number of Amazon reviews
o The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly – David Meerman Scott (178 reviews)
o Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, Revised Edition by Andy Sernovitz, Guy Kawasaki, and Seth Godin (132 Reviews)
o Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies – Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff (94 reviews)
o Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time – Joel Comm (91 reviews
o Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust – Chris Brogan and Julien Smith (42 reviews)
o Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone – Mitch Joel (27 reviews)
o Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business! – Paul Gillen (23 reviews)
o Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms The Way We Live and Do Business – Erik Qualman (23 reviews)
o Open Brand: When Push Comes to Pull in a Web-Made World – Kelly Mooney and Nita Rollins (18 reviews)
o Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR – Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge (15 reviews)
Blogs, etc.
o Brian Solis – briansolis.com, twitter.com/briansolis
Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley. Solis blogs at PR2.0, bub.blicio.us, and regularly contributes marketing & tech insight to industry publications.
o Chris Brogan – chrisbrogan.com, twitter.com/chrisbrogan
Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, and co-author of “Trust Agents.” He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.
o Charlene Li – twitter.com/charleneli, altimetergroup.com/blog
Charlene Li is the Founder of Altimeter Group and co-author of the business bestseller, “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies,” published by Harvard Business Press in May 2008.
o Joseph Jaffe – jaffejuice.com/jaffejuicetv/, www.crayonville.com/
One of the most sought-after consultants, speakers and thought leaders on new marketing, Joseph Jaffe is President and Chief Interruptor of crayon, a conversational marketing company, specializing in community, dialogue and partnership.
o Guy Kawasaki – blog.guykawasaki.com, twitter.com/guykawasaki
He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. He is currently a Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, and has been involved in the rumor reporting site, Truemors, and an RSS aggregator, Alltop. He is also a well-known blogger.
o Groundswell – blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/
Presents ongoing insights from Josh Bernoff and other analysts involved with the ongoing Forrester’s Social Technographics® study.
o Jeremiah Owyang – web-strategist.com/blog/, twitter.com/jowyang
Jeremiah Owyang is a Partner focused on customer strategy at Altimeter Group and author of the popular blog “Web Strategy,” which focuses on how corporations connect with their customers using web technologies.
o MediaPost Social Media Insider http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Archives.showArchive&art_type=66
Social media news from the media, marketing and advertising professional’s leading resource for complete news coverage, engaging events, a focused social network, and comprehensive industry jobs, directories and research.
o SmartBrief on Social Media – smartbrief.com/socialmedia/
SmartBrief on Social Media delivers the best news and insights on the business of social media. The editors become your personal research assistants, handpicking and distilling the most useful information about new and established social networks, user-generated content, blogging, wikis, media sharing, and more.
o Advertising Age DigitalNEXT – adage.com/digitalnext/
The Ad Age DigitalNext blog is a collection of news and opinions on the emerging media and technology space and its opportunities and impact on marketers. The group’s esteemed (and opinionated) contributors run agencies, startups, and creative departments and hail from all sorts of disciplines, including design and user interface, social networking and community, mobile, gaming and virtual worlds.
Articles, posts, whitepapers
o Top 10 Social Media Tools for Entrepreneurs – mashable.com/2009/10/26/social-media-entrepreneurs/
o Social Networking for Businesses & Associations by Cerado – www.cerado.com/…/Cerado-Haystack-Executive-Briefing-Social-Networking-for-Businesses-and-Associations.pdf
o Four Ways Social Networking Can Build Business – bnet.com/2403-13070_23-219914.html
o How to Get Started With LinkedIn – bnet.com/2403-13070_23-219860.html
o Metrics for Social Applications in a Downturn – courses.washington.edu/com529/page2/page7/files/page7_1.pdf
o 50 Ways to use Social Media, listed by Objective – web-strategist.com/blog/2008/07/15/50-ways-to-use-social-media-listed-by-objective/
o A Draft Social Media Metrics Model – webwalker.ca/2008/05/19/a-draft-social-media-metrics-model/
o Social Media Marketing Campaigns: How to Set Goals and Define Your Target Market – http://www.doshdosh.com/social-media-marketing-campaigns-setting-goals-defining-prospects/
o How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business – mashable.com/2009/10/27/social-media-roi/
o 19 sites that can make Twitter soar for you – networkedinc.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/19-sites-that-can-make-twitter-soar-for-you/
Posted in
general Tags:
blogs,
facebook,
interactive,
twitter
Just about everyone here in the office is a gadget hound.