Google offered up more details of its upcoming Google TV platform on Monday, announcing launch partners for hardware and content. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of all the details Google shared, however, is its strategy to make viewing all the content provided via the Web as easy to view on your huge HDTV as any other source.

Google TV is effectively a service built on Android which allows for unified searching of content. You want to watch the most recent episode of The Closer? Then search for it, and choose among the many options that Google TV finds in local listings, Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, or viewing via TNT's website.

Google TV can even integrate with DISH Network service if you have it installed, searching its program listings in addition to Web, local broadcast, cable, and other sources. It can be set up to record programs via a DVR as well. (Comcast should seriously consider getting on this train—its DVR interface is embarrassingly bad.)

On top of finding video content from a variety of sources, Google TV will let you "fling" video from Android devices to your TV à la Apple's AirPlay (it sounds better than "squirting"), view the Web with an included version of its Chrome browser (complete with Flash 10.1), and use your Android phone or iPhone as a remote control. And unlike Apple's iOS-powered Apple TV, Google has announced that Android-based apps can be created and loaded on the device to extend its functionality. At launch there will be a number of apps like Twitter, NBA Game Time, Pandora, and a photo gallery viewer, and developers will have access to an SDK early next year.

The app capability is interesting, but it's a somewhat obvious move. The same capability is possible with the Apple TV, and Steve Jobs has hinted that it could be forthcoming. What we find more compelling is that Google is taking a page right out of Apple's iOS playbook and encouraging website operators to "optimize" their sites for viewing on a Google TV-powered device.

"Anyone can develop content for Google TV's open platform through made-for-TV websites," according to a page geared toward developers. Google is providing sample code and best practices for website developers to tweak their sites to work on an HDTV screen. And since it is based on WebKit, developers can leverage techniques learned in building iPhone-optimized sites as well. Google highlighted a few online content sites making these tweaks, including the New York Times, Vevo, and Blip.tv.

More surprising, though, are the cable networks that are readying their sites for Google TV's launch, including TBS, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, CNN, and TNT. Granted, these are all Turner-owned networks, but by offering content from these sites, users and content providers alike are effectively cutting out the cable middleman.

HBO Go is also listed as coming this fall, though it requires a subscription to HBO cable channels to access. On the other hand, it's possible that HBO could decide to offer a subscription to HBO Go directly to consumers if the demand is there. The industry experienced its first decline in subscribers last quarter—if declines continue, content providers could increasingly reach out directly to viewers.

If a network is already making content available to viewers via its website, Google is making it dead simple to get that content on a TV instead of a computer. Cable operators won't like it, but Google is giving content providers a direct conduit to their viewers, and at least some are taking advantage of it. Google may have found the right formula to finally bring TV (kicking and screaming, perhaps) and the Internet together the way we long imagined it could be.