Research report shows that consumers are ready for widgets on their TV
17 Mar
Posted by: Bryan Bennett in: polls
According to the consultants and researchers at The Diffusion Group, 76% of adult broadband consumers are interested in having a widget toolbar on their primary TV - 28% say it would be extremely valuable. TDG goes on to compare widgets on TV to mobile apps and the impact they’ve had on hardware development by Apple, Blackberry, etc.
I’m still 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 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.
According to an informal pool we did in the TVLoop community, roughly half of our users only want to watch TV when they’re watching their favorite show. In other words, they don’t want to be bothered by widgets, applications, and social features. They simply want to watch what’s on. There are obviously some differences in research methodology as TDG’s is much more scientific and statistically significant. That said, I would love to see the demographics of the respondents as I’m a bit surprised that 76% of broadband adults know what a widget is. My parents fit into that category and definitely wouldn’t have a clue as to what you were talking about and I guarantee my Dad has no interest in messing up his 50″ plasma with a widget toolbar.
This is obviously not the last time we’ll hear about widgets on TV. In fact, we’ll likely strongly consider adapting the TVLoop apps to fit the Yahoo TV platform that has been talked about. I remain on the “don’t see it” side of the room and look forward to being proven wrong.
[...] We’ve been talking about the Great TV Widget debate for a while now, and I still think the jury is out on whether this is something that mainstream consumers really want. Our informal poll indicated that there was only marginal interest as most consumers want to watch TV when they’re watching TV. However, enabling Flash videos makes it a little more interesting for me. Now you can see where content providers such as Disney, Netflix, and others could use Flash software on a web-ready TV to dynamically deliver movies and other video content to subscribers. So in effect, the widget really just becomes another content delivery mechanism rather. [...]