Saul Hansell has a series of blockbuster scoops condensely packed into one article in today’s New York Times. Hansell confirms what Om Malik and The Wall Street Journal have already reported — Google plans to announce today a premium video-on-demand service. But, Hansell has details on a new service called Yahoo Go that would extend Yahoo’s services — particularly video services — to the TV set, an initiative CEO Terry Semel plans to announce at CES today.
Yahoo will unveil free software designed to transport Yahoo content to TV sets, software clearly aimed at competing with Microsoft’s Windows Media. The software will contain an interactive electronic program guide as well as user reviews and ratings of shows. Yahoo’s video will be advertiser supported, but like Google, Yahoo plans to announce later this year a premium video option.
The software Yahoo will unveil enables program recording on the PC, much the way PVRs function for TVs now. Although Yahoo’s email and IM services won’t initially be available on the TV set, the company plans to make them an option later this year. The Yahoo TV software will run on any computer with Windows XP or any mobile device using Intel’s new Viiv technology.
Google’s Page will announce today that CBS and the NBA have agreed to sell their programming via Google Video, with CBS charging $1.99/pop for each program, a price level established by Apple’s iTunes video service. While Google plans to offer video advertising (a prospect we outlined in our recent Television 2.0 report on Google), the new service won’t initially be advertiser-supported.
And unlike Yahoo’s service, Google’s new DRM technology will not allow the transport of content to mobile devices. But Google, and Yahoo, are announcing today deals with mobile phone makers that will their services more transportable.
Motorola will start making models of wireless phones that have dedicated buttons linking to Google’s web sites. And Yahoo will introduce software that synchronizes a user’s Yahoo account with some cell phones made by Nokia and Motorola.
Update: Rafat Ali has more details on Yahoo’s Go service here. The Yahoo Go site is live here and will feature a podcast of Semel’s CES keynote, slated to start at 12 ET.
Cynthia Brumfield at 7:21 AM|Comments(0)
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