Nexus One may get TV spot

(Updated with post-Super Bowl confirmation) Google may have a high-profile Super Bowl ad tomorrow, based on a hint from its chief executive Eric Schmidt. He asks Twitter followers this afternoon to pay special attention to ads in the third quarter of the football game and is teasing that it will be a rarity for the company. An observer commented that "hell has indeed frozen over," according to Schmidt.

A number of Google's products and services could be advertised during the segment. The most concrete is the Nexus One, as it's the first and currently only Google-branded hardware sold to the public. Critics have chastised Google for a near-total lack of promotion for the Android flagship, a silence which may have cost it sales in the past month.

Other options include an ad for Google's core search engine, to counteract Microsoft's Bing TV spots, as well as Chrome and YouTube rentals. The latter two are less likely as Google has been advertising Chrome frequently on the web, while rentals are still very limited.

Update: Federated Media chairman John Battelle claims a "pretty reliable source" says the ad is a TV version of Google's "Parisian Love," a YouTube spot for the search engine that shows multiple searches leading to romance.

Update 2: Google has played the "Parisian Love" ad; Schmidt explained that the video was never intended for TV but that it was "special" enough to share with a wider audience.

By Electronista Staff