Eighty-six years after a reporter watched the first demonstration of a television system in London, the Guardian has launched a television app in the US. It's a new way to view our latest videos, headlines and photo galleries on a TV.

The app works on Google TV. If you don't have Google TV, be warned: we'll be making our way to an internet-connected television set near you soon.

Our app is a significant move forward for our strategy to open up journalism to a global audience through digital media. After five years of multimedia growth and winning awards, including an Emmy, Guardian video can be consumed at leisure on some televisions.

What we're releasing is a beta product - so it is not a finished product. It is built by a tiny but extremely talented team led by Guardian programmer Dan Catt (@revdancatt). With the help of our product manager Sharath Bulusu and design team, he has created an elegant interface that hooks directly into the Guardian's Open Platform. A feed of selected content appears as it is published.



TVs are made for viewing, so we've tried to keep the experience clean and simple. When you first click on the app from the Google TV home screen, you'll see the latest full-screen image from our acclaimed Eyewitness news photography series.

Then a menu and grid of content appears. Down the left is the menu of options. Read our headlines for news, sports or arts and features. Watch some of the Guardian's video (we make 10 hours a week) in HD. View the latest photo galleries. The rest of the screen has a grid of pictures and headlines.

We've focused on Google TV for now, because Chrome allows us to build an app quickly. In theory, this means we can create and release new versions of the app as often as we want, avoiding the lengthy approval processes required by some other connected TV platforms. We'll experiment in real time with the content on offer and the user interface, tweaking both as we go.

Once happy that we have a "stable" prototype – v0, if you will – we'll lock that design down and replicate it across other platforms, with a clear focus on the major UK platforms.

Like all our colleagues in the industry, we have seen firsthand the amazingly disruptive effects of the web over the last decade. We believe the advent of internet-connected televisions and tablets heralds a period of similar change for the TV industry.

We want to be a disruptor, not an incumbent. Come and help us disrupt. For those of you with Google TV, try the app and let us know what you think by commenting below or on Twitter using the hashtag #gdnforTV. We'd appreciate your thoughts on the concept.