Type "widget" into Wikipedia and the results may surprise you. This term has roots that range from economics, beer, comics, even reference to a ’90’s vintage TV series…and it’s Widgets of the TV kind that we want to focus. (No, not "Widget the World Watcher.")

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

A group led by Intel seems to think that the Widget engine (defined by Wiki "as a software system for running applets on the web, desktop or mobile phone") will drive the next generation TV viewers to the Internet… and they may be right.

For years now the IT (information technology) space with roots in big business networking and computing, has lusted after a place in the CE (consumer electronics) domain, aka, the living room TV. In this pursuit, all kinds of plans and products have come and gone from top IT brands like Microsoft (WebTV), Intel (Viiv Media Server) and Apple (AppleTV gen1), plus hundreds of others. To date, the biggest challenge has been merging the "lean forward" viewing experience (that included interface with a keyboard) with the "lean back" experience of TV viewing using the remote control.

The painful lesson learned from all these products is that most TV viewers will not stand for a "lean forward" keyboard driven interface. They want to click their way to viewing Nirvana. Don’t get me wrong, the Internet is the way of the TV viewing future, as "broadcast" itself morphs into a more "narrowcast" service provider model, expanding options to the viewer including time shifting and the wonderful world of IT based services (aka Internet).

But to get there without the power of an interactive keyboard can be a tricky task, one that the IT world has wrestled with for years now. Enter the humble widget. In the TV viewing domain, a widget is no more than a smart button that resides on some kind of interactive TV display, giving you specific access to something else you may want to do-presumably while still watching TV.

But as Greg Tarr writes in TWICE, the Intel widget doesn’t really sound so humble. "Intel’s so-called Widget Channel in TVs, Blu-ray players and other set-top devices revolves around a connectivity middleware framework that blends the typical linear broadcast viewing experience with a Widget-based Internet services experience. The two are blended together in an easy-to-navigate user interface for the consumer." It is powered by an Intel chipset (the CE3100 system on a chip), which should be followed by its next generation chip technology (code named "Sodaville").

Widgets are powerful little buggers. One implementation (apps on the iTouch and iPhone), has proven to be the "killer app" that transformed mobile computing and shifted the playing field in multiple industries, including mobile gaming and e-book readers to name just two. Home medical devices, global positioning, and a host of new mobile services like interactive advertising and social (proximity-based) networking, are all empowered by this simple web connected applet (widget.)

Beyond mobile smart phones, getting this right for the CE space includes simple access to powerful web driven applications that open up the connected world of digital information in meaningful ways. Apple’s Steve Jobs made a fundamental change to the gen1 AppleTV (dubbed "Take 2"), removing connectivity to the PC and focusing on easy access and delivery of HD content including films. "Movies, Movies, Movies," he said in his 2008 MacWorld Keynote that introduced the new changes of AppleTV Take2. But AppleTV is limited to digital content including movies, TV shows, music, YouTube, podcasts, and photos. And as Apple has demonstrated in the mobile domain, web-based widgets can do so much more.

If Intel gets it right, the coveted domain of CE living rooms can be the prize. And a new generation of devices will open up the lean-back viewing experience, powered by the Internet, for all to enjoy. Just don’t count Apple out yet. The millions of apps downloads on iTouch and iPhone devices (and the revenue generated) must have the boys and girls at Apple wondering just how to deliver independent software developer apps (aka widgets) to your living room TV, and how to get a piece of the revenue pie this will generate. - Steve Sechrist