videonet Discusses the “Implications of Chromecast for pay-TV and content owners”
If you’ve been following the Chromecast, Google’s latest foray into TV Land, there appears to be quite divergent opinions on how useful it is for consumers. What I haven’t seen before, is a discussion on how the existing STB/pay-TV provider views the device. I’m not sure if I agree with the conclusions, but I won’t spoil it. No matter where you, or they, fall in on the Chromecast and other attempts at disruption I think we can all agree that it will be interesting.
We all know by now that Google is up to something, perhaps big, with the launch of its Chromecast dongle-style screen-sharing device. Not only are there a lot of hushed discussions by industry professionals and openly by consumers about what this means for the future of TV, but there is also a lot of confusion around the device capabilities, Google’s strategy and whether this is a truly disruptive device or just a great form factor—essentially a replacement for an HDMI cable from your computer to the TV.
I like my chromecast and with
I like my chromecast and with the 3 months of Netflix they initially bundled, it was a total impulse buy. But now that it no longer has that promo, I’m hard pressed to recommend spending $35 for one vs $50 for a refurbished ROKU to my friends. It’ll be interesting to see how it comes along with better support over the next few months.
I’d love to see what can be done when the API is finished and how accessible it is to open source projects. It’d be amazing to see something like XBMC with Chromecast local streaming built in, but that might just be outside of the scope of what Google would allow.