YahooTV: Paving the Way to an Open IPTV?
Posted: February 03, 2010
By Sheila Shayon
IPTV is spreading, slowly, across the globe. By year end 2009 the universe of homes that were receiving IPTV services was 26 million. By year end 2014 that number is expected to reach 70 million worldwide.
The greatest growth in IPTV is in countries with established high-speed Internet technologies including the Netherlands, South Korea, Hong Kong and France. As technology progresses, still developing countries like China will catch up quickly in subscription numbers.
Dashboard widgets first hit the market with Mac OS X Tiger. They are very small applets designed to convey quick bites of information or a quick change of setting. Some familiar forms of widgets include clocks, event countdowns, auction-tickers, stock market tickers, flight arrival information, daily weather. A.k.a. gadget, badge, module, webjit, capsule, snippet, mini and flake, Web widgets most often use Adobe Flash.
Last year, Yahoo made the bold promise that Internet TV widgets would be the major phenomenon of the year. Launched as Connected TV in 2009, Internet-enabled widgets allow viewers with compatible TVs to access Twitter, Facebook and certain news feeds.
That prediction did not materialize, but Yahoo has now upped the ante and launched a new TV widget chip ready for installation in set-top boxes. Having entered into a deal with chip manufacturers MIPS and Sigma, Yahoo widgets can now be installed in a range of hardware. Yahoo widgets enable Internet-connected TVs access to online video with one or two clicks on the remote. The widgets show up as snippets in a “dock” at the bottom of the TV screen or via a widget directory in a panel at the left of the screen.
Yahoo’s latest partners include: Netflix, VUDU, Amazon VOD, Showtime, CBS, CinemaNow/Blockbuster and video catalogs from FrameChannel, Brightcove, Zinc and 1Cast. Previously available only on newly manufactured HDTVs, a new device that will carry Yahoo widgets was introduced at CES: the ViewSonic media server, VMP80. Yahoo’s Widget development kit is now publicly available.
It seems as if Internet-ready TV manufacturers are no longer controlling the Web-surfing experience — and Yahoo has opened the doors.
Sheila Shayon is president/founder of Third Eye Media, third-eyemedia.com, multimedia production with core competencies in broadband production, creative design and execution, and social media. Shayon has several decades of multimedia experience working for companies like Time Warner Cable and Home Box Office.
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