Snapstick is teaming with D-Link to help achieve its goal of unfettered web content to your mobile phone and big screen television.
We’ve covered Snapstick before and it promises to allow you to use your iPhone as a media viewer, as well as a remote for your large screen television. Using the Snapstick SplitMedia technology, you would be able to “snap” the content over to your TV via WiFi. The mobile device would then function as a visual remote control.
This is a similar promise that Google TV and its Android remote apps failed to deliver in 2010. The Google TV products came out a bit expensive and many premium video websites like Hulu and Comedy Central blocked these users from viewing their content on a television.
Snapstick and D-Link said it is trying to solve this walled garden of content and the SplitMedia technology appears as a standard desktop browser to the video site, so the company says it will offer full access to things like MTV, ABC, Hulu and more. The D-Link partnership will likely lead to some living room hardware that hits in the first quarter, with more Snapstick partners to come.
I’m cautiously optimistic about Snapstick but have yet to nail them down on how they’re going to avoid the pitfalls that crippled Google TV. Much like how Android didn’t become a success until Google partnered with carriers, I don’t know how well the over-the-top approach to web video on the television will work unless there are deals with content providers. Is it the right thing? Probably not but it may be the only way to do business.
The service is currently in a private beta and we’re doing everything we can to get our hands on some hardware. We’ll also be talking to the Snapstick folks over the next few days and we’ll let you know what they say.