Intel, Yahoo jumpstart living room web marketplace

According to the companies, possible use cases include watching videos, tracking stocks or sports teams, interacting with friends and staying current on news and information. The widgets can also be personalized much like the popular online services Yahoo Finance or Sports and eBay. The partnership has already succeeded in getting a number of content providers, including Blockbuster, hardware vendors like Motorola and cable providers like Comcast, which said it would being testing the Widget Channel in the first half of 2009, on board.

“Any time there is a stable of developers out there to build this up, I think that is good as well,” Wolf said.

The companies today stressed that OEMs displaying the widget channel on their set-top boxes are required to offer access to all of the widgets in the gallery, regardless of the company or service. Wolf didn’t see this stipulation as a deal-breaker for a provider like Comcast, but he also wasn’t convinced it would stick once the service is actually launched.

“When I see a Comcast set-top box with the ability to download any Web service I want through the Yahoo widget gallery, then I will be convinced that they are really going to embrace it,” Wolf said. “Right now, I have to wonder if the Comcast folks are just doing it for PR efforts, but I do think they are interested in it. They see streaming video content as a competitive threat. The business interests just need to be further clarified. There is an opportunity here for business relationships between the service provider and the Web content provider and the consumer electronic manufacturer, but that all needs to be hashed out.”