Yahoo just announced a new partnership with Toshiba to feature Yahoo TV Widgets on several models of Toshiba’s latest 6”-55” HDTVs, including the WX800 Cinema Series 3D LED. "With the addition of Toshiba, Yahoo! now has partnerships with some of the biggest OEMs in the world, including Samsung, Sony, LG, Vizio, Hisense and most recently, Vestel," representative for Yahoo tells WebProNews.
Yahoo says its TV Widgets are on 3.5 million TVs around the world, and that they have active users in 135 countries. Yahoo also says the widgets provide direct access to over 50,000 entertainment sources at the click of a button.
"Some of the most popular brands, including Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, eBay, Amazon, Blockbuster, CBS, USA Today, Showtime, YouTube, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Weather and Yahoo! Finance, have all developed TV Widgets for Yahoo! Connected TV," the representative points out.
"Our publicly available Widget Development Kit (WDK) also enables anyone to create a TV widget and broadcast to millions of consumers around the world,’ she continues. "Yahoo!’s scale and exposure to new audiences ensure that content developers and publishers have a vast opportunity with Yahoo! TV Widgets."
"In the future," Yahoo says, "you will be able to find Yahoo! Connected TV on new CE devices including set top boxes, media players, Blu-Ray players, DVDs, DVRs and other devices. This is because of Yahoo!’s partnerships with global silicon and integration partners which ensure that our platform works on all major consumer electronic device chip architectures worldwide."
Yahoo has displayed a great deal of confidence in its Connected TV strategy, and the company is going to need it, because competition is about to get tougher than ever. Google and Apple both plan on getting their versions of what connected television should be in as many homes as possible this fall. Not to mention other competitors like Boxee. However, Yahoo is clearly up to the challenge.
