Yahoo Connected TV: Bringing Widgets to your TV

Yahoo announced a couple days ago that they are working with Intel on a new initiative, called Yahoo Connected TV, that aims to make TV more interactive. Connected TV will allow users to use their TV remote to personalize and manage TV Widgets. So what exactly are TV Widgets? According to Yahoo “TV Widgets are small Web applications that make it easy to surf your favorites sites with your remote control. Watch Web videos, track your favorite teams or stocks, interact with friends and family, and stay current on news and information by clicking on the compact, interactive apps that sit on top of your normal TV picture.”

Yahoo will be offering developers the opportunity to build their own TV Widgets through their Widget Development Kit (WDK). Yahoo TV Widgets are powered by the Yahoo’s Widget Engine that uses standard web tools like JavaScript, XML, HTML and Flash – therefore making creation fairly easy. Yahoo will only be making the WDK available to a limited amount of developers and companies but I expect them to slowly roll this out to the general audience fairly quickly once they get a handle on the service.

Personally I am surprised we haven’t seen better Internet / TV integration. I don’t want to connect my PC or MAC to my TV or use a Web TV type service. I want components of the Internet easily accessible using my existing Digital Cable box and existing TV remote – Yahoo Connected TV seems to have the promise of delivering what could possibly be the next big innovation in Interactive Television. However, Yahoo will have to be careful to not make this too commercial or intrusive into the TV watchers experience. Adding widgets of components of the Internet I am interested in is one thing, allowing for company to intrude on the experience with advertisements is another thing.

Yahoo will be launching sometime soon (my guess is early 2009) with 6 available TV Widgets, which include: