I don’t consider myself an early adopter of technology. I still prefer books in paper and I don’t feel the need to try out every device or app that comes on the market. At best, I’m a reasonably fast follower.
Nevertheless, when Google GOOG -0.34% came out with Chromecast, I ordered it within a few days (which still made me too late to get one before the first batch sold out). It came last week and so I’ve had some time to put it through its paces. (Disclosure: I own Google stock through a fund).
So far, I like it a lot. It was remarkably easy to set up and I like the way I can control my TV from a tablet or smartphone. With my Apple AAPL +0.37% TV, I would always search for what I wanted on another device before I would start fiddling with the clunky remote. Yet what really excites me is not what the Chromecast is, but what it’s going to be and how that will change my life.
The New Age of Web Video
I’ve never been a real fan of web video. I might watch an occasional YouTube video or a TED talk, but sitting at my computer screen for an hour or two to watch a TV series or a movie just doesn’t appeal to me. Holding a tablet for the same period isn’t much better.
As ad executive Bob Hoffman points out on his Ad Contrarian blog, I’m not alone. Only 3% of video viewing occurs online. The other 97% happens right where it always has—on the big screen. This shouldn’t be surprising. As TV’s are getting bigger and better, why would anyone choose to watch video on a puny little screen?
Of course, it’s been possible to stream web video onto big screens for awhile using smart TV’s or external devices like Apple TV and Roku, but the experience has been unwieldy. You still have to navigate through a remote and that makes it hard to browse through and find what you want to watch.
With Chromecast, however, you can just beam whatever you want from your tablet or smartphone, making the experience much smoother and more natural. What’s more, it’s about the size of a large USB drive and only costs $35, making it realistic to put one on every TV in the house.
Screens Everywhere
An Apple TV is a bit bigger than a hockey puck and costs $99 dollars. Chromecast is probably less than a quarter of the size and about one third the price. It’s perfectly reasonable to expect that in the next few years we’ll see similar devices that are a quarter the size and a third of the price of Chromecast.
For that matter, why do we need a separate device at all? At a half inch long and ten dollars, a device could be included in a high end TV without us even noticing it in the design or the price. And for that matter, why just video? Why can’t we just project anything from our smartphone and tablets anywhere we want.
[[ source forbes ]]
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