[houseabsolute]

My thing is, whatever happened to Google just launching things without announcing them? They still do it for features, but no longer for products. Maybe it's something you can't do with physical products because consumers might postpone their buying decisions for competitors until after the launch. Still, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I see us announcing things that are not even nearly done yet.

[cryptoz]

> Still, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I see us announcing things that are not even nearly done yet.

What? The blog post explains that devices running Google TV will go on sale this month. That is, within the next 27 days you will be able to buy a Google TV.

How is that "not even nearly done yet"? Dude, the product goes on sale in less than 27 days. It's probably done.

[houseabsolute]

It was announced many months ago. I'm using this opportunity to talk about how unfortunate it is that we announced it so long ago and are only launching it now. I'm not saying this current announcement itself is a fail. :)

[donohoe]

It was announced months ago so they was a window for developers to start building things.

[mikeryan]

I'm not sure that's true (I'm not sure its not either) but in this case Google hasn't been very open to outside developers.

They have solutions for "optimizing your website for TV" but nothing on the dev page for developers but a coming soon. That and the fact that Android apps won't be available until 2011

http://www.google.com/tv/developers.html

[illumin8]

They said it would be available in September. Now they say it will be available in October. To me this seems like vaporware, specifically to keep people from buying AppleTV. They still don't have any content deals setup. I haven't heard any big players other than Netflix, which is already available on any Bluray player made (practically).

Where is Hulu? Where is ESPN? These are the networks they need to beat Apple in this market, and they're conspicuously absent. Even Youtube is supposed to have TV rentals "really soon now," but I haven't heard much about that recently.

Why does it seem that the only thing Google can do now is say "me too" whenever Apple releases a new product?

[joezydeco]

Um, wasn't GoogleTV announced at Google I/O in may, way before AppleTV2 was announced? How do you introduce vaporware to block the sale of something that didn't exist yet?

[Psyonic]

1. Physical products probably do need early announcements. The new AppleTV launched recently. Knowing GoogleTV is on the way, I'm definitely going to wait and compare. 2. Control the announcement. Since they had to tell developers anyway (to get apps and websites optimized), it's better to announce it then leave to techcrunch, gizmodo, and all the other rumor mills.

[mikeryan]

I can understand that but in this case its just a timing thing. If this was a July launch they'd probably be more under wraps until closer to launch. But with the X-mas buying season coming up quick they need to get it onto consumer's radars earlier.

[houseabsolute]

Roger, but I'm talking about how it was announced months ago at Google IO, not this current announcement.