Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 2:20 PM PT

Do You Want Widgets on Your TV? TDG Says You Do

We’ve asked before whether you really want widgets on your TV, and new data from The Diffusion Group indicates that yes indeed, you do want a dedicated area to access Internet-connected applications via your TV set.

According to TDG’s numbers, 76 percent of consumers think having a widget toolbar on their primary TV set would be valuable (though 48 percent of those people said it would only be “somewhat valuable”), 13 percent were neutral and 11 percent were negative.

Whether you want them or not, widgets are on their way. Yahoo and Intel are ramping up their TV platform to enable access to weather, stocks and news information on the ole TV, and Verizon recently showed a glimpse of what Twitter and Facebook will look like on its FiOS TV service.

This proliferation of widgets could come at a cost, though. TDG warns that too rapid an expansion of applications for the TV could outstrip the hardware capabilities of the television. TVs aren’t like cell phones, which people cycle through every few years. This is why some companies, such as Boxee, believe the future is with separate set-top boxes, which can be swapped out more easily, and not with the TV sets themselves.

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Topic: Stats

Comments (1)

just sat in on a panel at SXSW about next-gen devices for acquiring digital media content — they touched on the widget and colin dixon of the diffusion group moderated the panel actually. i’m with the 48% that see the widget as only somewhat useful…sometimes you just want to zone out and watch tv! i don’t know that i’d want to see my friends’ facebook updates start popping up on my sony bravia any time soon.

Star M. — 11:36 AM on March 18, 2009 Reply

Linkbacks (6)

[...] not sure I’m a huge believer in the “widgets and apps for TV” phenomenon, but as Chris Albrecht at NewTeeVee puts it: Whether you want them or not, widgets are on their way. Yahoo and Intel are ramping up their TV [...]

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[...] Malik | Thursday, April 2, 2009 | 3:25 PM PT | 0 comments Upon reading a blog post about future of widgets (tiny Internet apps) on the television, Stacey Higginbotham quipped: “Caller ID through my cable co, Twitter, weather widgets, [...]

Sometimes a TV, Should Just Be a TV — 3:25 PM on April 2, 2009
[...] Chris Albrecht over at NewTeeVee has a post about widgets on your TV. Apparently, consumers are looking favorably on this. Yay! It seems the concept came out of nowhere at CES this year when Yahoo! announced their widget toolbar and manufacturers (chiefly, Vizio) announced the integration of this toolbar on their TVs. The toolbar would include not only classic Yahoo! widgets such as a clock, weather and Flickr photos, but also Netflix and Blockbuster streaming. I said it then and I’ll repeat it now… this is the death knell for not only DVD and Blu-ray, but also cable TV (although not cable internet). Just in case you’re wondering why Time-Warner Cable and Comcast are putting bandwidth limits on their internet access… this is why. [...]

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[...] the Connections Conference is how televisions are evolving beyond just displaying moving images. As widgets, web video and social features come to TVs, TVs become more like PCs. Does this mean that [...]

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[...] really wanted widgets on their TVs said yes, and preliminary research from TDG earlier this year echoes that sentiment. According to TDG’s numbers, 76 percent of consumers think having a widget toolbar on their [...]

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