The "Widget channels" are on their way

I read today about Intel and Yahoo getting together to create TV chips that allow web channels to run alongside TV shows. Have a look at the article here. It doesn't take a huge leap to imagine how this would look on screen. It's a much bigger jump to envisage how it might actually change the way I watch TV and how I use the Internet. Quite separately I did start to think how, if they were successful, Widget Channels might impact the TV advertising market. Already in decline, is this just one more nail in the coffin that pulls viewers away from TV shows? Either way it is just one more demonstration of just how hard our UK PSB's are having to look at creating new business models to cope with convergence.

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1. At 1 Sep 2008 15:28, David Brennan wrote:

A couple of things. This sounds suspiciously like the ill-fated WebTV service from Microsoft in the 90's - people didn't want to merge their web and TV experiences onto one screen - that is why they are far happier with laptop and TV providing different functions, often at the same time. You also assume this could be a threat to TV's advertising power, when all the evidence is that TV drives web usage and, ultimately, purchase and if the two media can be linked together (as happens with concurrent consumption) then TV's effectiveness is further enhanced, as evidenced by Thinkbox's study with the IAB earlier this year - TV + Online:Better Together

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