Google Is Making a Hardware Entertainment Device

Like we reported earlier, Google will be building an in-home multimedia device. While the WSJ’s leak doesn’t pinpoint a precise release date, it does mention some interesting tidbits.

The device, apparently, will act as a music hub, letting you stream music from your Google Music account to Google-made speakers, as well as serving said music to other network-connected devices. Likely streaming video will also be part of the deal, and I’d be willing to bet that there’s something of Google TV in there too. It will integrate tightly with Android smartphones and tablets, a good thing since it is running its own variation of the platform.

The most exciting possibility is that this is an expansion of Google’s Project Tungsten, part of their Android@Home push that (until now) seemed to have gone nowhere. Android@Home, if you remember, was Google’s platform for creating a fully-connected home. Combining NFC and a low power radio spectrum, the platform aimed to make itincredibly simple to network your lights, speakers, TV, etc to each other, and to control it all with your smartphone. You can watch the video here (skip to 46:45):

This could be the culmination of Google’s Android@Home project, which I think could end up being revolutionary.

It seems most people in the media don’t agree. Business Insider (here republished by Gizmodo) even called the move a total disaster and utterly mad. But I think that they are missing one very serious point: Google is on the verge of nonexistance.

Google relies on an open web. Its entire design is based on scraping the web and finding what people consider valuable, through links and tracking clicks. But the web has seen a shift away from that openness towards silos of content. Facebook is a great example. Many sites now see more traffic from Facebook than they do from Google, thanks to sharing and utterly annoying tools like Social Reader. It isn’t hard to see Facebook replacing Google as a search provider. And, because Facebook doesn’t make any of its data available for scraping, all that information is lost to Google.

Then there’s the appification of the internet. As wildly successful as Android has been, apps are actually quite damaging to Google’s core service, search. Data shuffled through apps are largely isolated from each other, and most definitely Google.

Google has seen all the services that it holds so dear under assault by a closed web that we, the consumers, chose. We prefer silos of content because much of the time they are easier to deal with, even as they stifle innovation. So, unless Google can adapt to a closed, silo-based internet, they are screwed. And they could be out of the game in as little as 5 years.

Google+ was designed to fight this obsolescence, as has Android and Google TV. This move into hardware and home automation, while it might seem like a mad thing, is probably necessary for the company to stay alive.

focusing on expanding Youtube and building killer apps is great, but if those are Google’s future then they are dead. It is too short-sighted, and won’t stop their competitors from making them obsolete. No, Google needs to make this venture successful. Failure could cost them the game.

The Verge Photo by : Google I/O 2011