We all know that Google is working on a project to bring Gigabit network to life for many people in the near future, but Google needs a city to be its guinea pig. The news is out! Google is going to let Kansas City be its guinea pig.
With Google pushing ahead for Gigabit network dream, I’ve to wonder how big ISPs are taking this news. Obviously, if Google becomes a big player in broadband, the market will become a little more saturate. If Google can deliver super fast broadband (i.e., Gigabit network) and with unlimited bandwidth usage (i.e., no data cap), ISPs will have a very powerful opponent in their backyards. For Google, it knows that faster network with no data cap can stimulate people to stream even more, and the idea seems to fit with Google’s business model rather well. Streaming content era will allow Google to expand its advertising reach to more people at anytime and at anywhere.
In fact, streaming content era may push the TV era into extinction, because people don’t have to relate to TV for videos and similar contents. Broadband companies who bet big in the TV era may be left in the dust when streaming era has its way. Just imagine this, streaming contents to billboards, small TVs inside the vehicles, sides of big business buildings, locations within the malls, and anywhere else where videos can be displayed – this will only make advertising an even more bigger market, but everyday folks will definitely find commercials to become evermore clingy and annoying. Also, future technology may aid this idea into personalizing each commercial for each individual so the commercial itself becomes evermore persuasive — pushing people into real actions such as buying new products.
The whole idea of prioritizing people’s insatiable hunger for streaming has great potential in creating a new economy, but if not it’s still probably going to be very disruptive to the current economic model. Depending how you see the disruption though, because some folks may think such a disruption will be a negative one, but I think it will be otherwise. So yeah, it’s a good news that Google is still moving ahead with their vision of enabling Gigabit network for everyday people. Let just hope such a future will arrive sooner than our imaginations.
Vinh Nguyen
