Google goes TV with streaming sitcom

The premiere episode of Chris Rock's new sitcom, Everybody Hates Chris, is available online - and not just illegally from P2P torrent sites, but wholly sanctioned by its network in partnership with the sum-of-all-fears, Google.

The implication from Google virtually becoming users' replacement for television is just as scary as the Googlezon/EPIC threat on the future of news. Coupled with Google's current and emerging dominance in other Web-based services (mail, maps, demographics, even finding taxis), I know from friends in the business that network broadcasters are more than a little worried.

There's something about Google tuning up its own content delivery syndication I find both exciting and disturbing. Granted, this case appears to be a one-off event just tied to promote future viewership of the show on air. Nor is this show the first to tease with whole episodes online; the Sci-Fi Channel has been doing the same thing with its Battlestar Galatica series for a couple seasons.

And then among the Mac folk there is Participatory Culture Foundation's DTV player effort, or whatever Steve Jobs might have planned for that new "Video" tab in the latest versions of iTunes.

As for myself, I spent last Saturday reconnecting my EyeTV box to DVR onto my G5 iMac, a viewing experience slightly better than the no-remote, "get up to adjust the volume" 19" Sanyo television I've had since my happy college days watching movies on Betamax.

Everybody Hates Chris episode online [Google]
DTV: Internet TV on Mac [participatoryculture.org]