And the Nobel Prize in Futility Goes to... Makers of New Web-TV Boxes
My colleague Chris Dannen wrote about the possibility that Target (TGT) and Walmart (WMT) could lose the Internet TV battle to the Apple iPad. The food chain continues: Yet other companies are still creating Web devices for televisions that, in turn, will be eaten by Target and Walmart-backed TVs.
One example is the new Litl Box, previewed by Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan:
...the Litl TV box ... aims to go where no man has gone before (since 1998): To turn your TV into a legit web browser with a new generation of web apps.
Anybody who remembers WebTV is probably immediately skeptical of an attempt to use TV as a medium for the web. Litl says they're different though, because they want to create web apps "that offer group experiences." Okay. Litl does recognize, at least in theory, the vast gulf between web content designed for the computer, and where the TV sits, literally and metaphorically:
When you're leaning back on a couch, those OS's don't work. So we've rethought how the browsing experience could work on a couch, at 10 feet away. What we really wan to deliver is an excellent web experience on TV, which doesn't exist yet.
So that's hopeful.
Litl isn't alone in this strategy. Another company is Neuros Technology and its Internet TV box Neuros Link (stripped down starting price: $249.99). There's nothing wrong with optional set-top boxes, a la Boxee and Vudu. I just don't know why any company would create an external Internet device, based on a proprietary OS, when major corporations are backing Internet within televisions.First off, app developers are already comfortable with more universal platforms. An Apple app developer can make software for the iPod, iPhone and iPad. An Android app developer can market on a variety of Google phones as well as its upcoming tablet. A Litl app developer can invest in the upcoming Litl TV box or the Litl Webbook -- which was just discounted from $699 to $399.
Second, consumers are getting used to one-stop machines. As Chris touched on in his post, the Apple iPad puts the Web and television in one simple device. The still unproven Web-enabled televisions do the same thing. Requiring users to buy yet another device isn't the direction successful consumer-electronics gadgets are headed. Even Apple couldn't successfully pull off Apple TV -- an obvious forefather to Litl.
Litl would do well to connect with a television manufacturer and create an exclusive line of Internet-enabled TVs or chuck its proprietary OS and connect with Google or HP as they develop in the tablet space. A relatively small manufacturer with an external web TV device just doesn't make much sense in 2010.
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