Yahoo Connected TV and Others - Respond to Google TV Launch

Details

Published on Saturday, 22 May 2010 10:07

Given the recent Google TV news, Yahoo has officially responded with the latest information on Yahoo!’s Connected TV milestones and leadership. Appmarket.tv received notice yesterday from the Yahoo PR and Marketing team.

Yahoo! has a solid leadership position and was one of the first major companies to introduce a TV Widget experience. Yahoo! Connected TV is designed to allow users to interact with their favorite Internet content while watching TV, all with a simple TV remote – no keyboard, mouse, or additional work is required. Yahoo! Connected TV is simply on demand movies, TV shows and Web content developed for how consumers use their TVs.

“Consumers love television, and Yahoo! is enhancing the TV viewing experience by adding high quality, personally-relevant Internet content across devices from the world's largest consumer electronics manufacturers. Yahoo! is leading, innovating and delivering amazing consumer experiences, and there is no doubt in my mind that the next phase of the Internet revolution will be televised.” said Ronald Jacoby, Chief Architect, Yahoo! Connected TV.

• This includes distribution partnerships with 5 of the top 10 TV manufacturers worldwide including Sony, Samsung, LG, VIZIO and HiSense.
• Yahoo! announced a global channel of silicon and integration partners and works on all major consumer electronic device chip architectures worldwide; this will enable Yahoo! to power a new CE devices including set top boxes, media players, Blu-Ray players, DVDs, DVRs and other devices.
• Yahoo! has a robust community of 7,000+ registered TV Widget developers.
• Yahoo! provides consumers with thousands of content sources and Internet experiences they know and love - specifically created for TV.
• Yahoo! will aggressively lead and grow our audience by expanding into new devices, embarking on new OEM partnerships, and dramatically expanding our geographic reach.
• Yahoo! announced the commercial release of the Yahoo! Connected TV platform with Samsung, LG, Sony and VIZIO in January 2009 at the U.S. Consumer Electronics Show.
• The first televisions with Yahoo! Connected TV became available in March of 2009.
• Yahoo! Connected TV has shipped on approximately 3 million TVs in 16 countries across North America, Europe and Latin America. Yahoo! expects millions of additional OEM TVs and other CE devices to ship with Yahoo! in 2010 and 2011.
• Yahoo! Connected TV works on all major consumer electronic device chip architectures worldwide, including MIPS Technologies, ARM® and Intel®. This means it will become available globally in additional TVs and consumer electronic devices such as Blu-Ray players, media players and set-top boxes. ViewSonic announced a media player running Yahoo! Connected TV.
• There are 50+ TV Widgets available today, enabling consumers access to over 50,000 movie and TV shows, games, shopping, social networking and the ability to create their own personal Internet channel from thousands of content sources. We expect over 150 more TV Widgets to debut by end of year, with many offering full access to the media and personalization Internet users expect.
• TV Widgets are monetized today through transactions, subscriptions, and advertising Yahoo! is currently focused on growing a global audience of millions of users, and plans to offer Yahoo monetization services to developers in the near future.
• Yahoo!’s Widget Development Kit (WDK) became publically available in January of 2010 - http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/developer. There are now more than 7,000 registered developers.
  

Bluestreak Technology CEO and President, Dominique Jodoin, also contacted us and was a lot less defensive. He welcomed the Google TV foray.

“As a company that is a proponent of both open development environments and Flash technology, we applaud the new Google TV strategy,” said Dominique Jodoin, CEO and President of Bluestreak Technology. “Today, nearly 60% of consumers browse the Internet while they watch TV. Consumers are clearly hungry for a more personalized and interactive television viewing experience and Google has now set the stage to deliver it. This will certainly place increased pressure on Apple, Microsoft, and other major TV players to enhance their current TV offerings or be left behind as developers choose to focus their efforts on open environments. At Bluestreak Technology we currently support the Android operating system for mobile devices and we now look forward to supporting it for TVs as well.”

I thought the most interesting angle from the Apple lens on the Google TV launch came from a great comment at 9-5 Mac by myquills.

You guys are really looking at this from the wrong vantage point. This isn't really Google taking stabs at Apple. This is Google vs Apple, Cisco, Motorola, and Tivo! Apple didn't want to step on the toes of Cisco, Motorola, and TiVo. Google apparently does not have that problem. The GoogleTV is a competitor for any manufacturer of a set-top box or companion device from Cisco to Apple to TiVo. The bigger picture is that Google is beginning to delivery SkyNet. They are covertly not just monopolistic and deeply entrenching themselves in the consumer space, they're becomming what Microsoft wanted to be when it grows up!