Google TV Gets Social, Leans Back

I’m not a cord cutter. Crazy! Right? I know! It’s because the person I live with loves her some Andy Cohen (all the Bravo fans in the audience know who’s got the 411) and I’m all shivers every Sunday night with Old Nan’s stories about the White Walkers and knowing that Winter is Coming (all the George R.R. Martin fans reading know wassup). But if I was a cord cutter, this news about this new native application for Google TV could maybe have me shredding up my cable bill to make faux snow like people do with phone bills in those Vonage commercials.

Redux is Google TV’s answer to the questions “How do I find good things to watch on the internet?” and “How do I sit back on my couch and watch good things from the

internet on my TV that’s 10 feet across the room?” The socially curated, leanback TV experience launched yesterday with a blog post from Redux Founder and CEO David McIntosh.

The concept is not terribly unlike VHX.TV and basically goes like this. There a lot of video sharing sites on the web (YouTube, Vimeo, blip.tv) and places to find great content (Hulu, Netflix), but there aren’t a whole lot of places to comfortably watch that content in the manner by which humans have been conditioned through 70 or so years of television and the basic setup of America’s living rooms. Redux brings all those videos you want to watch and didn’t know you wanted to watch into one convenient place for leanback, continuous viewing.

The application “leverages the talents of your friends, interesting curators, and influencers,” and “feels like the traditional veg-out TV we’ve all come to love” allowing you to “flip between channels using the up/down arrow.” Those channels can be made by you, come as suggestions from your social circle, or be populated by selections from featured Redux curatorialists, like Thrillist or GreeneStreet Films.

Applications and sites like Redux, VHX.TV, and YouTube Leanback show a dedicated interest from technologists in trying to crack the code for what can turn the internet into a viewing experience that’s as comfortable, easy, entertaining, and gratifying as sitting down in front of your TV and not having to think too hard to be entertained. It’ll be interesting to see which company’s cryptanalysis wins out.

If you own and operate Google TV, give Redux a try. No Google TV? No problem. Check out Redux on your Google Chrome browser at redux.com/tv.