Adobe has announced that its popular Flash software will soon be coming to web-enabled TVs, Blu-Ray DVD players, and set top boxes. The move will allow developers to leverage Flash to provide rich-media applications and widgets to consumer televisions. So what kind of widgets can we expect? The Venture Beat article specifically mentions dynamically updated online video, audio, and RSS widgets.
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.
That may have been the plan all along, but this is the first time I’ve seen it more clearly stated. Web video is infinitely more interesting than having lots of random widgets on your TV as the image below seems to indicate. I just don’t see myself giving up that kind of real estate to news and RSS feeds.
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