That would explain low customer satisfaction post-purchase but does not explain the terrible sales. People just didn't buy the thing.

I think the problem is Google TV attempts to give you a more awkward interface to things you would rather use a tablet or SmartPhone for. Who wants to browse the web on their TV? Post to Twitter from their TV? It's absurd really. No one wants to do that. People want to watch video on their TV and play games. Google TV played video but you had to pay $300, or about $200-$250 more than competing devices, and didn't play games. It cost as much as a modern gaming console. If it was $100 and had good integration with SmartPhones and tablets it would at least be a pretty good accessory for some people who didn't want a gaming console. Google didn't learn from Apple & Microsoft's mistakes.

That is the type of thing Google wanted the Revenue to usher in. They failed though. They naively thought ABC and NBC were going to create new sites for TV navigation and it never happened, because those channels don't want you watching web content on televisions, they want you watching (the much more profitable) television content.

There's a lot of tv content , available on the web for free.

It's good for viewers(short term) , and it also helps pressure the studios. Long term (since this platform is controlled by google) , it helps the studios and google.

To build a successful brand up from its bootstraps, pulling only your own weight is simply not enough. Google did not do enough. I have done brand building for my companies, and there are times when I have had to put out fires that weren't directly responsible for creating.

They bought Slim Devices, a Valley startup which developed a set of networked audio players. The Slim software and team seemed quite strong, but development of new players and software upgrades have really slowed down since the acquisition. And, there was a botched player release (I forget which unit it was, but it was the same deal as the Revue -- released before ready).

When I emailed Logitech and told them they should open source it so the community could fix it, the rep got mad at me. :-)

However what logitech's response is demonstrating is that Google can't get the backing of their partners to endorse the product, which is a sure sign that it's not just logitech at fault here. Google should be looking out for the hurdles which will prevent the success of the product, many of which you've listed.

- Various file formats and the likelihood that these can't all be played, google can do more to sure up content providers, similar to how apple enticed youtube to cross convert videos to mpeg4. Google can't take the attitude that "it'll all be alright".

- Google are failing at signing up studios, the main content providers and the entire reason why the average consumer would be purchasing this product.

- Launching premature products, it's arguably an attempt at being in the race rather than having a genuine interest in studio content. This car has no wheels, and google lacks experience when dealing with content providers. (Not everything can be obtained by search.)

GoogleTV and Revue got so close, just never followed through.