Google pulled an Oprah today at Google Zeitgeist, giving away 600 geeky gift packages to lucky attendees. The packages included 6 months of DISH Network service, a Sony BRAVIA HDTV with Google TV, and complimentary Best Buy Geek Squad installation. A pretty sweet package, but one has to wonder if most of these attendees need the Geek Squad’s help.
Zeitgeist is an attempt to bring together the “leading thinkers of our time” from all walks of life and all professions. The goal is to “explore the ideas and phenomena that affect our social, economic, political and cultural surroundings.” What better way to get the public at large excited about Google TV than to give the product away to a bunch of smart and influential people.
Assuming Google TV delivers, they should get a lot of good press and word of mouth coverage. According to Google, their much-anticipated free TV service goes live this fall. It completely undercuts Apple’s recent $99 Apple TV launch and it’s pretty hard to go lower than free.
While we haven’t seen an official launch date for Google TV, it looks like Best Buy may once again have spilled the beans via a leaked document. According to Engadget, an internal Best Buy document puts the Google TV launch date at October 17th, having been pushed back from October 3rd.
This places the launch right at the beginning of the new TV season premiers and just after Apple’s TV launch. Probably not a coincidence. We will also be going into the holiday season as Thanksgiving approaches, so it seems logical to make Google TV available in October.
It’s not confirmed, but it seems very likely this date is correct. Google giving away Google TV service to 600 people “from business leaders to statespeople, renowned writers and bloggers, professors and publishers, inventors and humanitarians, activists, and musicians” only seems to support an upcoming launch date.
With so many tech savvy people checking out Google TV, we should see some interesting insights into the service in the coming weeks.