Years ago, futurists proclaimed that TV and internet would converge and that we’d be surfing the web from our living rooms, relegating our PC’s and laptops for productive work. It became pretty clear that TV is a “leaning back” experience – where one soaks up passively – whereas browsing the web is more of a “leaning forward” activity where people actively focus (or focus on being distracted by YouTube videos). Regardless, no one really found the right way to successfully and thoughtfully bring the internet to TV. And no wonder.

As Steve Jobs claims, the cable TV market is very “Tower of Babel” with varying standards from market to market, few if any international standards and fraught with all sorts of regulatory issues. As a result, Apple has only dabbled in the TV space calling it a hobby rather than a line of business. As content delivery is increasingly being fragmented and distributed via many additional sources, there’s a huge unmet need to consolidate them through a single interface.

Enter Google TV. Now that Android has established itself as a formidable mobile OS, Google is looking to leverage it in the TV space. It does all of the things you’d expect like browse the web, search and use apps but builds on it by connecting to your cable/dish provider as well. Regardless of how polished Google TV ends up, it’s certainly an ambitious position to take and one that’s sure to rile content delivery pipes (eg: cable & satellite providers) to no end. It takes the TiVo concept one step further by shifting not only viewing time, but viewing source.

It’s clearly an assault on the other main device that consumers’ attention is spent on. Besides being able to deliver even more targeted advertising, the real prize for Google is the vast new sources of data about its users’ media consumption patterns and preferences. When they learn to couple traditional online behavior with media consumption behavior, AdSense will be even more powerful. Then factor in that your remote control is your Android phone and it becomes pretty mind-blowing when you consider Google is often the first place people start online and could now be the first place for media and entertainment.

Talk about a hot-button topic!

Highly influential bloggers pride themselves on building a following by being truthful and objective, increasingly rare qualities in a world of “advertorials” and non-branded sites that blur the line between honest to goodness content and marketing collateral. It’s fascinating how it is so divisive. As the social world gains momentum, we’re going to see more and more of it so I’d suggest getting comfortable with the idea.

It’s fair to assume that consumers appreciate it when authoritative voices are up front and disclose potentially relevant conflicts of interest as it takes the moral high ground. When you hear financial analysts talk about companies they cover, they are required to disclose if they or their families have any stock positions in these companies. It’s not so cut and dried though, because the financial relationship is the exact opposite — analysts may own stock that they pay for themselves. But if we look at an example closer to the web world, does anyone remember search engines pre-advertising and pre-AdSense? The digerati were up in arms when Google first introduced AdSense but then we realized that it worked because they were trying to help us by delivering contextualized relevance.

Jeremiah Owyang’s recent piece on sponsored conversations has caused a bit of a stir. Essentially, it’s compensating bloggers to write about your company. He is bang-on about how they need to be done “ethically and is sustainable for the long run” and that the topic is pretty controversial. How can it work?

• If bloggers disclose they are being compensated
• If bloggers are free to speak their minds

These rules seem designed to protect the bloggers’ reputations which is fair. But I’d like to see something like a Hippocratic Oath for bloggers who engage in sponsored conversations so that companies can have some peace of mind too. Specifically, I’d include the following:

• Bloggers must speak truthfully about their experience and not have a hidden agenda
• Bloggers must disclose if they have any relationships with competitors
• Bloggers must disclose if they own stock in the company or competitors

That’s about it. If I were a lawyer, I’d add hundreds of other conditions, but my job is to enable conversation and engagement, not put up roadblocks. I think this is a just a start, but I’d like to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below.