"We know these people with these interests have watched these programs and changed channels at these times," says Mike Steib, Google's director of TV Ads and emerging platforms. "We've actually been able to find that we can forecast which ads are going to perform well."

    The biggest issue with TV Ads for a company like MetLife stems from the product's limited inventory. Hong says the company has maxed out how much it can leverage TV Ads with 10% of its total TV advertising budget. To be fair, Google has continued to grow its partnerships, currently working with more than 95 channels like A&E, MTV, and the Weather Channel. (Its most recent partnership -- the Tennis Channel.)

    But analysts are concerned that a big network isn't on board. "You have major forces like the cable industry and broadcasters who are all somewhat wary of letting a player like Google into the business," says Gartner analyst Andrew Frank.

    For now, that's a point for the little guys: Trevor Fellows, head of ad sales for Bloomberg Multimedia, says that his team can sign on advertisers who might not have thought about Bloomberg TV because they didn't previously understand the network's reach.

    "The buying processes for advertisers and buying habits haven't caught up with the way television has become more like the web," says Steib. Hewing to its stated mission of organizing all the world's information -- yes, even the sitcoms -- fixing that disparity is what Google has set its sights on.