Digital TV Vendors might borrow few ideas from iPhone market model …..right around the corner

iPhone and its smartphone clones have rejuvenated the mobile industry in the past few years. Not only that, consumer electronic (CE) vendors might be taking a page or two from the smartphone market, very very soon …

Enter Widgets and Apps on digital TVs.

Last year at CES, most of the CE vendors have offered Widgets and Applications that come built in and can run with the help of network connectivity.

Does this mean, five years from now, one might have 100s of applications, widgets and gadgets running on their HDTVs in their living rooms ….. I see the signs all over the place ……This is equivalent to “Decoder cards” for the 1930’s era television viewer.

 

The biggest challenge or issue for this to happen until now is lack of network connectivity in these TVs along with less software footprint and so forth …..

While current CE vendors offering limited “premium” App/Widget capabilities (from the likes of Netflix, Ebay, Amazon) as a customer acquisition strategy rather than an up sell or increased revenue potential, the tables might turn in a few years, where DTVs with unlimited Apps and Widget support are bound to command a premium over DTVs without any such capabilities.

While the current generation is spending more time on the web, TV still continues to command a health share of attention in the media consumption verticals. In fact, a research done by Nielsen concludes that more U.S Teens are spending as much if not more time in front of the boobtube as of 2008 …..

With that kind of end user loyalty, the future generation TVs with Widgets, Apps and Gadgets are well positioned to steel the thunder back from the PC Monitors, in the near future ….

PS: Note to PCs and Laptops – the party is coming to an end ….. pack up and clean up …..

CES 2009 Review – CE Behemoths are shifting their focus towards Web and User Interaction

Just got back from CES show in Las Vegas and I found some interesting trends at the show …..there was an all around endorsement from CE behemonths for the following -

Viera Cast YouTube

1. Web is here to stay and consumer electronic industry cannot ignore that any more – While last 10 years of CES was all about Plasma, LCD, HD TV, Thin TVs, Large Screen TVs and some home networking, this year I saw clear endorsement for Web from the CE 800 pound gorillas. For years, Microsoft, Apple, Intel and HP have tried to make this marriage happen but this year it felt like the CE manufacturers are ready to welcome the web into the living rooms. Across the board, Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic, LG and the likes have demoed technologies and products welcoming Web, Web Video, and other rich media into their TV sets. Some of them showed widgets (although closed) while others showed custom home growth interfaces to access Netflix, Amazon, Flickr and so forth.

While most of them showed proprietary implementations of hooks into the Web, this could be the start of the Web on mainstream CE devices. It felt like CE manufacters will start to do an arms race to get premium relationships in place for their next generation TVs and DVD players.

This could turn into a wind fall for Internet giants – Amazon, eBay, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Yahoo, etc – for many years to come.

Ideation and Disruption –

What are the opportunities for Ideation and Disruption in this case? While CE industry will try to do this their way initially, there might be opportunities for open platforms and aggregation down the line. Startups could focus on intergrating various web services and package them to sell to each of the leading CE device manufacturers. This way CE manufacturers can focus on what they do the best and leave the Web integration to the Web experts. While Microsoft, Yahoo and Google might take the lead on such efforts, startups still might have interesting role to play in such a future.

2. Man to machine interfaces – At the show it felt like CE industry is very keen on upgrading the user interaction to the 21st century. Panasonic, Toshiba and others have showed some really cool “man to machine” interfaces. Toshiba’s Spacial Motion Interface is certainly interesting. Microsoft’s Surface is note worthy. Panasonic’s next generation remote control could bring the innovation “remote controls” needed for so long. Over all this is a great trend for content industry in general as this will lead to better user experience and engagement …..