Interactive TV & Mobile Devices

The number of subscribers worldwide to telco/IPTV services will approach 40 million by year-end 2009, according to international research firm Parks Associates. The strong growth in telco/IPTV services is due partly to aggressive provider deployments, according to the firm's new white paper IPTV and the Digital Home, but the most successful rollouts will incorporate multiple services, such as home networking, convergence in entertainment and communications features, and unique interactive services such as quality on-demand programming.

Parks Associates reports the number of telco/IPTV households worldwide grew by nearly 80% in 2008 to exceed 20 million. The growth rate will exceed 50% in 2009. (Parks Associates, July 2009)

MySpace has partnered with Yahoo and Intel to create a "MySpace Widget for TV", which will allow users to interact with MySpace on a new generation of web-connected TVs.  As per the information available, the widget is based on a TV application developed by Yahoo and running on devices with Intel's Media Processor chip, which will be included in TVs made by Samsung, Toshiba and other device-makers. Its part of a major effort by the two companies to marry television and the web on a host of new TVs, set-top boxes, and other devices. (Eye for Travel, January 2009)