Chromecast: the web-to-television breakthrough we’ve been waiting for?

Google has just released Chromecast, a small device about the size of a pen drive. But rather than plugging into a USB port, it goes into the HDMI input of most modern televisions, and is fed by a micro USB output. For the moment the Chromecast dongle is only available in the United States, at a cost of 35 dollars, although it has already sold out in most retail outlets.

So why would anybody be interested in yet another device that reproduces web-based content on a television? There are already innumerable such gadgets, from computers designed to live next to the television, to the hyper-flexible Raspberry Pi turned into a media center, to a galaxy of computers on a stick using Android or other system that allow for similar functions, without pointing out the similarities with Apple’s AirPlay, which has been on the market for more than three years now and has sold more than 12 million units.

Which prompts the question: are 12 million devices a lot or a few? Undoubtedly, those sales make it the most popular in its category, which is saying something. But that is precisely the problem: this is a category that is still to be defined, and in a global market, 12 million is a very small number. What’s more, the Apple device only works with Apple products: there are lots of iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Macs out there; but it is still a limiting factor, as shown by the fact that the product, although generally well-received by users, still hasn’t reached, despite its years in the market, the kind of sales the people at Apple are used to.

That said, it was still doing much better than Google TV, Google’s offering for a market segment that is constantly subject to a creative chaos and filled with a range of devices that users struggle to keep up with.

But Chromecast, from the same team as Google TV, could break the pattern. Its simplicity and low price, along with its openness, which makes it extremely extremely hackeable, suggests a change of direction in the company’s strategy, and addresses a key issue.

Up until now, incursions into the world of television have come up against property rights issues. Apple has attempted to deal with this by reaching deals with players like HBO or ESPN to offer apps with their content on its device. But the problem with this strategy is that there are a great many suppliers out there, and if a user doesn’t have access to them all, then the device in question has clear limits.

With Chromecast, Google have taken a different approach. By pricing their device so low, it is practically an impulse buy; by making it extremely open it means that anything that can be watched on a device, any device that can support Chrome, can also now be watched on a television screen with ridiculous ease. To begin with, this gives viewers access to everything that is already on the web. It also means that anything that hasn’t yet been put on the web will have to be made available as Chromecast grows in popularity and is to be found in more and more homes.

The device functions completely in the cloud, which means that all content you have on a hard drive will have to be uploaded to some site that is compatible with the cloud if you want to watch it. Anything that you can see via your navigator can be launched directly to television, and if you want it in other formats, we can expect the appearance of all types of applications that work with Chromecast SDK.

Its price, the Google label, and a partner like Netflix giving away a three-month subscription to new and existing subscribers mean that this is likely to gain a lot of traction, and will give Google a major boost. Apple would be advised to take this development seriously. Some people are saying that there really isn’t anything new here, and that there is an element of me-too. That might be true, but the copycat strategy hasn’t done Google any harm. Google Play, Android’s apps shop, is a classic me-too product, and now has 100,000 more applications than Apple’s pioneering App store.

Until now, and despite the continued importance of television sets in our homes, few people have managed to set up a simple and permanent link between their screen—which still rules the roost—and the web. Chromecast aims to invade that market, making that link easier than ever, and giving the company a presence in the television content market, one that until now had resisted conquest.