Search Engine Marketing via Television!

I went to a Manchester Publicity Association lunch last week and during Nick Bampton's presentation, was struck by the unrelenting pace of media convergence, and the impact it will have on us all as digital marketeers.

It dawned on me that Samsungs new HDTV television sets that will feature the Internet@TV content service, made possible thanks to the Yahoo Widget Engine,will allow Internet connectivity to users' living rooms through the televison set. Initially, users will be able to check their stocks and news headlines and also browse Internet-based videos and photos as well as interacting with friends.

Soon after that, I am sure more personalisation tools will come along that enable marketeers to provide a full CRM platform for creating an ongoing dialogue with their customers via the TV set.

The TV set and the Internet will become more fully converged, making TV/Internet an even more powerful customer acquisition channel.TV adverts of the future will be 'clickable' with the aid of a red button, and lead to deep linked personalised web page content.

The compatible Samsung HDTVs connect to the Internet via their built-in Ethernet port or an optional wireless USB dongle that then connect to an existing network. Yahoo-owned online services such as Flickr, Yahoo News, Yahoo Weather and Yahoo Finance can be accessed via the HDTV, as well as USA Today, YouTube, eBay and Showtime Networks, to name a few. Eventually, the content will expand to include video streaming from other sites and other commonly used Internet services, as developers will have access to an open-platform Widget Development Kit (WDK) to create their own lightweight Javascript and XML applications.

Given this context, I can see it will not be long before user behaviour shifts from 'lean to' search engine browsing to an altogether more comfortable 'lean back on the sofa' search experience via the TV remote control.

In this new landscape, the battle will intensify between Google, Yahoo and Microsoft and maybe other players will enter the battle for TV search engion market share.

I,for one, can't wait to watch this space!