14 DAY TRIAL // The buzz around Google TV is beginning to increase as the launch date draws ever closer. With the first devices hitting stores next week, Twitter has just announced that it is making available a Twitter app for Google TV.
The app will enable you to do just about everything you can do on Twitter, but is customized to make it a better fit for larger screens.
"We’ve long discussed what the interplay between Twitter and television would look like. As a first step, today we’re announcing Twitter for Google TV. It brings Twitter to a platform that merges the Internet and TV into one experience," Twitter announced.
"The application has most of the features and functionality that you’d expect from Twitter. It makes it easy to look through Tweets, @mentions, and favorites. When you click on a Tweet, you can reply, retweet, favorite, or share it. You will also see additional options depending on the content of the Tweet," it explained.
The app, Twitter says, also enables you to explore the ecosystem and get the full context around a particular tweet. You can visit any external link or do Twitter searches for hashtags.
You can also check out the profiles of any user that you may come across. Finally, you can search for content on Google TV just like you can with the regular website.
That all sounds great, but a few rather important details are missing. For one, Twitter doesn't say when and how the app will be made available.
Applications for the Google TV platform are not slated to be available until next year. Granted, Twitter is not your regular developer, it could probably get integrated with Google TV from the get-go, but Twitter doesn't say.
Of course, it's unclear why Twitter opted to create a dedicated app when Google TV comes with a full-blow, Flash-enabled browser. It's very likely that Twitter could have just created a customized version of its website and be done with it. Whatever the case, there should be more details by the time Google TV launches.