Google and Your TV

This is amazing and creepy at the same time:

In a research paper presented last week at interactive television conference Euro ITV in Athens, Greece, Google researchers Michele Covell and Shumeet Baluja propose using ambient-audio identification technology to capture TV sound with a laptop PC to identify the show that is the source of the sound and to use that information to immediately return personalized Internet content to the PC.

"We showed how to sample the ambient sound emitted from a TV and automatically determine what is being watched from a small signature of the sound—all with complete privacy and minuscule effort," Covell and Baluja write on the Google Research Blog. "The system could keep up with users while they channel surf, presenting them with a real-time forum about a live political debate one minute and an ad-hoc chat room for a sporting event in the next."

The scheme is described in the research paper using a term that seems to be an oxymoron: mass personalization. It might also be characterized as a mixture of oil and water, a combination of television broadcasting and Internet narrowcasting.

"Mass-media channels typically provide limited content to many people," the paper explains, "the Web provides vast amounts of information, most of interest to few. ... Our goal is to combine the best of both worlds: integrating the relaxing and effortless experience of mass-media content with the interactive and personalized potential of the Web, providing mass personalization."

Not to mention massive profits. Marketers would kill to know exactly who's watching what when. With such a system, Google could extend its online dominance into television, and presumably radio, by offering advertisers unparalleled insight into the mass media audience.

As a Google account holder (via gmail), they already archive my search history. Now, they will have a record on the things I've been watching and listening. Man, Direct Marketers will have a field day with this stuff. As someone who works in data mining and warehousing, and built analytics for marketing, this is powerful data. The question is why would you want a single private company to have acces to that much of "your" data. How many people will actually opt in? Their track record in China was not exemplary, although they did push back when the Justice Department wanted access to their search logs.

Online spending is trending up, Google and Paypal have customer data that will alow them to be the next-generation Direct Marketers. No wonder Visa regards Paypal as their most important competitor.