There were many visions of TVs future at this year’s CES, but what came from Yahoo’s Connected TV platform may be the most appealing to broadcasters and consumers alike.
Yahoo unveiled a new feature for its Connected TV platform called ‘Broadcast Interactivity’ that brings an Internet-enhanced TV experience to consumers at the behest of broadcast networks and advertisers. The service works by showing the user a symbol at a broadcaster/advertiser specified point in the broadcast. If the user clicks a corresponding button on their remote, extra content is displayed.
At CES, Yahoo was using this to demonstrate polls based on the current TV show and interactivity to give more information about characters and products on screen, and even to show off a potential point of sale for its retail programming partners. The point of interaction is locked to a time of the content owner’s choosing and it is possible for the user to miss it. Consumers don’t have to interact with the special prompting, but they can define what content is relevant to them, golden information for Yahoo and its partners.
Yahoo is working with ABC, CBS, HSN and Showtime on content for a pilot program in the first half of 2011. Brand advertisers Ford, Mattel and Microsoft are planning to work with Yahoo to add interactivity to their TV ads.
Yahoo gave us a list of possible broadcast interactions for these partners and said everything on it can be done without any new infrastructure. CBS will show viewers of Hawaii Five-O information about actors, characters and settings via their remote control; ABCwill show viewers of primetime show actor information, photos and videos, during certain scenes, while watching the show. Video placement and when it takes over from the original TV show’s video will be determined by ABC.
Showtime will use the feature to give boxing fans detailed boxer information, vote for their favorite boxer and answer trivia questions; HSN (Home Shopping Network) will let viewers directly purchase items from the live TV show using their remote. Sales are controlled by the network partner, but Yahoo can store enough information so that if its own service is used, all the consumer has to provide is the credit card’s authorization number on the back to make a purchase.
Ford showed local car dealers, and allowed viewers to customize their dream cars; Mattel allowed viewers to dress a Barbie doll .Yahoo also showed off a voting process at CES, but the dream is to entice children and parents to make direct purchases, especially on Saturday mornings.
Yahoo said the partners will control how their additional content is shown and experienced. Yahoo has provided a basic framework which advertisers and broadcast partners can use, basically filling in the areas with the proper information, or they can make their own overlays and Yahoo will work to accommodate them. Yahoo will allow control for the associated interaction beyond the TV button, such as allowing users to use existing HSN accounts to purchase or if services want information provided directly by the consumer at a point of engagement.
For CE and industry partners, Yahoo has so far announced Alpha Networks, Aonvision, Broadcom, D-Link, Haier, MediaTek, Sony, TCL , Toshiba, TPV, Trident Microsystems and Vestel. It said that it will deliver the broadcast interactivity pilot on enabled devices in the first half of 2011.
‘Our collaboration with leaders in television and brand advertising, combined with the innovative technologies we’re pioneering, signals the beginning of a new era of highly personalized, Internet-enhanced television,’ said Ron Jacoby, VP of Yahoo Connected TV. ‘Imagine an immersive, real-time TV experience which brings people even closer to the programs and brands they love by enabling them to play along while they watch their favorite shows.’
Forrester forecasts that over one-third of US homes, roughly 43 million homes, will have a Connected TV by the end of 2015. Even if the current rate of actually connecting these devices to the web stays at a constant 16%, that’s just above 6.9 million homes, many if not most of which will have a connected TV powered by Yahoo’s platform, giving it advertisers and broadcasters an instant, deeper reach into the lives and pockets of consumers in the US.
Connectivity rates of these TVs are generally projected to reach between 35% and 55% by 2015, giving these partners a more likely reach of 15.12 million to 23.76 million.
TV ads were a $70 billion industry in 2010, and few signs point to this going away. Yahoo is aiming right where the money is and giving advertisers a strong reason to look at Yahoo as a connected player.
Jacoby is quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying that about 6 million TV sets in 135 countries have Yahoo Connected TV software, already which he expects to increase to 8 million by March.
Yahoo Connected TV, formerly known as Yahoo TV Widgets, has a collection of more than 100 apps that have found their way on to sets from Samsung, Sony, LG, Vizio, Toshiba, Vestel, Haier, Hisense, TCL and others.
While these device manufacturer haven’t always made it clear that Yahoo is their engine of choice for powering such services, it’s clear that Yahoo has its hands in all the right places for the connected TV space.
To keep up with the trends, Yahoo has announced plans to expand its existing apps platform. Beyond adding in a few new partners for its platform and its broadcast initiative, Yahoo is also now allowing apps in its storefront to charge money for their download. The app we saw was a premium poker app retailing for $1.99. The platform will be known as the Yahoo Connected TV Store, and is scheduled to launch in March 2011.
In a very fragmented world, there was one thing that stuck out for Yahoo. Purchases can be synched across five devices at a time, and they simply need to have the Yahoo platform, not necessarily be from the same CE maker. When this purchasing rolls out to consumers, it’ll work on all of their TV sets that support the platform, whether they are from Samsung, LG or Toshiba, even if these TV sets also run another platform, such as the case with Toshiba’s TVs that run both its Net TV service and the Yahoo platform. Yahoo said the storefront purchasing and its other coming updates to the storefront will be backwards-compatible to existing Yahoo connected sets.
Like the trend with apps markets, Yahoo provided an SDK for developers back in 2010 and will take a 30% cut from apps that are sold via its marketplace. Yahoo said it’ll have around 72 paid apps in its market when the store launches.
Existing TV apps range from ‘social networking to music, games, news, weather, finance, and shopping, and provide access to more than 50,000 movies and TV shows on demand.’ New TV apps will be coming from CNBC, Clear Channel Radio, NBC, QVC, mgMedia, Mediafly, Virtual Nerd, Screen Dreams, NASA TV and others. It is unclear which TV apps will be free or paid.
Yahoo clearly has its head on straight when it comes to TVs and consumers, and all of those devices people use while watching TV are at the forefront of Yahoo’s strategy.
Showing off both an iPad and Android remote control app, Yahoo said that these devices can be used as a smart remote control for Yahoo Connected TVs. Tablets and smartphones can sync with an on-air program and be given a variety of options. Users can interact with the broadcaster prompts directly on tablets as to not disturb the TV-viewing experience with surfing, reading bios, watching related videos and making purchases.
This will free the user from having to do manual searching on their device, instead giving Yahoo the chance to send the user a prompt that will allow him to access related content with the touch of a single button on their compatible device.
Perhaps more exciting is the coming ability for users to ‘flick’ videos from the tablet or mobile phone to the TV set for viewing.
Walt Disney is reportedly working with Yahoo to make content from its various TV networks available through Yahoo’s Connected TV platform. ABC is already a partner with the Broadcaster Interactivity program, so this rumor is more covering the Disney-branded content aimed at younger users.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Disney wants to use Yahoo’s platform to reach consumers through a new digital video distribution model. It’s unclear if Disney is pursuing an apps approach and will add dedicated apps for its TV channels, or if the media giant is more interested in adding in further functionality via the Broadcaster Interactivity program.
Disney generally tries out a variety of digital media experiments at once, so it’s very likely the company is aiming to create ESPN, Disney Channel and perhaps ABC apps. The main concern, according to various sources, is that piracy may still be an issue with some of this.
Not satisfied with just TV sets, Yahoo has also partnered with D-Link to produce its first companion Yahoo connected TV STB that brings all the functionality of Yahoo’s TV widgets to a dumb TV. The D-Link device will cost less than $200 and will be available in Q2. The D-Link device will also support Yahoo’s broadcast interactivity feature. Since this feature isn’t backwards compatible with all existing TV sets running the Yahoo Connected TV platform, it’ll be a way of bringing that feature to any HDTV that a user desires.
‘Consumers are signaling that they’re ready for Internet-connected TV, and we are shaping the experience into something truly exciting. Our partnership with D-Link will give consumers even more options and access to incredible Internet content on their TVs with a new level of interactivity and engagement they’ve never experienced before,’ said Jacoby.
The goal of Yahoo is to continually add to the feature set available for the TVs it is on. Jacoby said that Yahoo is hoping to change the minds of TV makers by getting them to realize that the TV ‘is no longer closed when it leaves the factory’ and that each set’s lifespan can increase if manufacturers make it easy for the user to update their software. ‘TVs are now an installed base’ said Jacoby.
Yahoo is clearly positioning itself to be on the TV of Tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean everyone views it as the only game in town. While Google TV has taken a bit of the spotlight away from Yahoo, there’s also some dissension among the ranks.
Samsung has already rolled out its own apps platform, despite being an early partner with Yahoo. LG has said it will follow suit and won’t have Yahoo’s Connected TV platform ‘on any new TVs going forward [from CES].’
Hisense, a Yahoo TV partner, is rolling out a similar broadcaster service, though it seems initially aimed at the Chinese market. Called the ‘HiTV Interactive TV Platform’ and running Hisense’s ‘HiTV OS,’ the company said the platform can do network and interactive integration with the ability to target users efficiently. Hisense is looking to partner with OEMs and pay TV partners before approaching individual broadcasters.
Those bumps aside, Yahoo has the strongest platforms for the connected TV. Perhaps the best part of Yahoo’s service is that it hides behind the scenes and isn’t often caught up in the mess or drama of existing battlefields and PR wars. Yahoo seems content to simply sit behind the curtain and power a working service, slowly collecting its money from as many partners as it can.
Yahoo’s Jacoby said that so far, there’s ‘been no instruction manual for Yahoo TV. We’ve never needed one and we never will.’ In this current market that’s flooded with new devices that all act and control differently, you can’t ask for a better concept than that.