Yahoo! has been at the forefront of the burgeoning Internet-connected TV landscape since 2009, when we first introduced Yahoo! Connected TV. We currently power the TV app experience for more than 8 million households on leading brand TVs including VIZIO, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and LG.  We created a personalized TV experience by combining your favorite Web content with the TV programming you’re already watching. This contrasts with other approaches that make you search for that content using a PC browser model.   We want to bring you more of the content you love, and as the world’s premier digital media company, we are uniquely positioned to make that happen in partnership with our global developer and publisher community.

Today, we’re introducing more than 30 new TV apps available across the Yahoo! Connected TV platform, bringing the total to more than 120 available TV apps. Connected TV apps range in purpose from fun to functional, including social networking, streaming music, casual games, personalized financial quotes, locally relevant news, weather and sports, and more than 75,000 movies and TV shows on demand.

New TV apps recently made available on the Yahoo! Connected TV platform, represent a variety of top brand and more niche, long tail content. Examples include:

Sports:

• NHL GameCenter™ – The free NHL GameCenter™ app makes a great companion to watching live NHL hockey on television.  People can keep track of live playoff scores, stats, news, and highlights from around the league without leaving the game they are watching.  Full-length archived and classic games dating back to the 1960s can also be accessed by linking an NHL Vault™ or NHL GameCenter LIVE™ subscription.

Video:

• Vimeo – Host your videos in high quality on Vimeo.com and watch them with the Vimeo TV app, along with thousands of other inspiring works from talented creators.
• BIGSTAR Movies On-Demand – People can stream from a selection of thousands of feature-length independent movies and foreign films, all for less than 17 cents a day through a monthly membership.

Shopping:

• Home Shopping Network – HSN Shop by Remote interactive shopping gives you the ability to purchase items using just a remote control. It’s easy, secure, and the fastest way to buy HSN products.

Entertainment:

• SGNL by Sony – SGNL by Sony provides a close-up look at Sony’s gadgets, games, music, and movies.

Photo Sharing:

• Joomeo – View Web-based photo and video albums in a Joomeo space on the TV.

Advertising:

• Ford – Ford Edge, 2012 Ford Focus, and Lincoln MKX – these Ford TV apps display information and videos about the hottest new cars from Ford. As a broadcast interactivity pilot program partner, Ford plans to integrate these TV apps with live TV commercials later this year.

Television Stations:

• TVO Kids and TVO Internet TV – Quality educational video content for kids and grown-ups from TVO, Ontario’s public educational media organization.
• Trinity Broadcast Network – Watch full-length feature films, specials, and TV programs from the world’s largest religious network and America’s most-watched faith channel.
• Local TV stations (20) providing on-demand local weather, news, and sports from the following markets and more:
  • Atlanta – WGCL (CBS)
  • Detroit – WXYZ (ABC)
  • Houston – KHOU (IND)
  • Kansas City – KSHB (NBC)
  • Las Vegas – KVVU (FOX)

Today, app developers can create free or paid TV apps for the Connected TV platform. The Yahoo! Connected TV Store, featuring a gallery of for-fee TV apps, is expected to launch in the near future. Yahoo! is also preparing a pilot program for a new feature called broadcast interactivity, which will sync TV apps with live broadcast content, as announced at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show.

Stay tuned for more updates soon.
Ron Jacoby, VP Yahoo! Connected TV

More than 400 women from across the leading tech companies will meet, network and share their wealth of tech experience, including diverse perspectives from women at different stages of their careers. Guests can participate in an informal Yahoo! panel discussion on ensuring the success of women in technology in the future, as well as a host of other fun events that will run throughout the night. There will be two photo booths, a “Women in History” Jeopardy game and an anagram puzzle station. Attendees will also be able to experience Yahoo! products, such as Livestand, Connected TV, Hadoop and YSlow – all of which have had major contributions from Yahoo!’s female technologists.

So you may be asking, what is a girl geek?  We define girl geeks as women who are passionate about technology and are making a difference in their field each and every day.  The organization behind the dinner, Yahoo! Women in Tech, touts more than 600 members across the globe and focuses on empowering female tech professionals to succeed, as well as encouraging K-12 girls to pursue technical careers.  The group is thrilled to host this event again and showcase the incredible contributions and achievements of both women at Yahoo! and the wider industry.

We hope you can join us for an informative and enjoyable evening that celebrates your efforts and achievements in tech!

Since the debut of Yahoo! Connected TV at CES 2009, we have defined the category of Internet-enhanced television, working with top TV brands to bring the TV app experience to life across Sony, Samsung, LG, Toshiba, and VIZIO TVs. This year, we’re taking the TV experience into a new era through the introduction of a ground-breaking feature we call broadcast interactivity.  Imagine a TV experience that brings you even closer to the programs and brands you love by letting you interact with the programming in a way you never could before. You’ll be able to play along while watching your favorite show, vote for a reality-TV participant, get more information about characters, or make e-commerce purchases using a TV app.

Yahoo! is collaborating with television network powerhouses ABC, CBS, HSN, and Showtime and top brand advertisers Ford, Mattel and Microsoft on content for a pilot program launching in the first half of 2011, and will showcase examples of the new feature during CES.  Read more about it at the Connected TV and Yahoo! Advertising blogs.

That’s not all though. We’ll also be demonstrating new ways to take advantage of the many connected devices we use today – from mobile phones to tablets and Internet-connected TV and more:

• D-Link Internet-Connected Media Player, Featuring Yahoo! Connected TV: D-Link announced plans to launch the first ever Internet-connected media player, featuring the Yahoo! Connected TV platform. The D-Link device will provide consumers access to the Yahoo! Connected TV experience without the purchase of a new TV.
• New Yahoo! Connected TV Apps:  Today the Yahoo! Connected TV experience centers around a collection of more than 100 easy-to-use TV apps that run the gamut from social networking to music, games, news, weather, finance, shopping, and more than 50,000 movies and TV shows on demand. New TV apps launching at CES include CNBC, Clear Channel Radio, NBC, QVC, mgMedia, and more.
• Flickr App Preview for Windows 7 Devices:  We’re making it even easier for you to share and organize your photos using the leading online photo sharing community in the world. The Flickr apps for Windows 7 phones and the Slate tablet – launching in a few weeks – will provide a sleek user interface and unique inter-connectivity between phones, tablets and laptops.  Check out more details on the Flickr blog.
• Yahoo! Local for Mobile:   Our goal with the new Yahoo! Local is to be the best place for people to find what’s happening in their neighborhoods, whether they’re at home or on the go. With rich hyper-local content, the new Yahoo! Local provides people a truly personalized experience across desktop and mobile (currently available via the mobile web on iPhone and Android), enabling them to discover and contribute to the best local news, deals, and events nearby, all in one place. Check out more details on the new Yahoo! Local for mobile on the Yahoo! Mobile blog.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with more of the latest news, pictures, and videos featuring Yahoo! at CES 2011.

Cheers,
Irv Henderson

As I’ve learned more about the people and products that make Yahoo! great, I’ve grown even more positive that our future will be a bright one. Our products continue to evolve — and at the heart of that evolution is our commitment to bringing personal meaning to the Web for everyone. In short, that means helping you and the other 600 million people on Yahoo! cut through the vastness of online data by providing the experiences that are most important to you — whether that’s instantly finding the content you are searching for or connecting you with family and friends.

Key to creating these experiences for you, and adding value for advertisers and partners, is our constant technological innovation of products like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, and Yahoo! Search, as well as our mobile sites, tablet and Connected TV experiences, and content properties like Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, and Yahoo! Sports. You’re using these products every day, and starting this fall, you’ll see more frequent updates for them. Check out our live webcast to watch this morning’s “Yahoo! Product Runway” media event, which we’re hosting in Sunnyvale:

While you can’t always see “under the hood” as a consumer, you should know that we’re delivering a number of planet-scale technology components to make it all possible. For example, we have built our products on global platforms and one of the world’s largest cloud computing infrastructures. What this means for you is more features and enhancements for the products you love — sooner and more often.

Some of the updates you can expect to see this fall include:

• A new Yahoo! Mail experience with even more focus on performance and speed
• New Yahoo! Search experiences with rich, immersive results that keep you in the loop on the news and entertainment topics that matter to you the most
• Twitter integration on Yahoo! that will allow you to link your accounts so you can view and share updates with friends across both networks
• A new Yahoo! app for iPad and other tablets that’s designed to deliver personally relevant news, information, and essentials like weather, commute updates, and more
• Customized Content Ads with creative formats that leverage an advertiser’s robust content and enable social sharing
• New Connected TV partnerships that provide consumers with thousands of video-on-demand content sources, social networks, games, music, shopping, and more — all while watching TV

Keep an eye out for updates to more Yahoo! products for consumers and advertisers in the coming months, including communication experiences, more social integrations, and improvements to our content offerings. At Yahoo!, our products are our babies. We create them, nurture them, and watch them grow to engage with hundreds of millions of people. Like any proud parent, we love them as they are — but we never stop trying to make them better.

-Blake Irving, EVP & Chief Product Officer, Yahoo!
@blakei

*A new study details which parent is more likely to keep a watchful eye on their kids online behavior

*Yahoo! Fantasy Sports-women launching leagues of their own as the boys of summer heat things up

*Yahoo! Connected TV brings TV Widgets to more than 100 countries around the world

About The Yahoo! Digital Media Bureau:

The Yahoo! Digital Media Bureau is a team of Emmy-nominated, multi-platform content creators who innovate and produce original video content, from webisodes to webumentaries. The Yahoo! Digital Media bureau is responsible for the weekly feature, Yahoo! News Bytes, which peels back the layer on everything Yahoo! The Bureau also produces the weekly Yahoo! Trends segment, which focuses on what’s trending in entertainment, pop culture and tech. Yahoo! Trends is distributed on broadcast television and seen throughout the United States.

This week, you’ll find a number of new third-party “apps” and “widgets” on Yahoo! Mail, My Yahoo!, Yahoo! Connected TV and Zimbra email to give you quicker access to the things you do online every day – whether planning your dinner menu, sharing photos with friends, or looking for YouTube videos. Below are screenshots and more info on some that we think are especially handy.

Make the Most of Your Inbox
Back in December, we started testing Yahoo! Mail apps that let you do all kinds of new things from your inbox. Today we’re introducing more great options, including:

• PayPal: request or send money securely
• Picnik: edit photos and share photo collages
• Zumo Drive: email files as large as 100MB for free

These apps are only available to a limited number of people during our beta period. Read more about the new Yahoo! Mail apps introduced today, and if you’d like to try it out, click here and enter your Yahoo! ID.

Personalized Productivity on My Yahoo!
We opened up My Yahoo! in December to tap into innovation from third party developers across the Web and give you even more choice for your personalized start page. Some of the new My Yahoo! apps available today include:

• Mint.com: manage your finances, set budgets and get money-saving tips
• Food & Wine Pairing: find recipes, menus, wine reviews and recommended pairings
• Green Lifestyle: grow your green knowledge and help benefit the environment
• WordPress: post to your blog and moderate your recent comments

To add these and other apps to your page, click on any of the links above or go to “Add Content” and look for the “Open Apps” category in the My Yahoo! gallery. These apps are built on the Yahoo! Application Platform, and you can read more about them and many others on the Yahoo! Developer Network blog.

Do More on Your TV
Back in March, we helped raise your TV’s IQ with widgets that can deliver the best of the Internet to your living room. In addition to your favorite Web sites like Flickr, Twitter, USA Today Sports, Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! Weather, Internet-enabled TVs from Samsung and LG Electronics (coming soon from Sony and VIZIO) now feature more best-of-the-web Yahoo! TV widgets, including:

• YouTube: search and view YouTube’s massive library of video content on your TV screen
• Showtime: find information, schedules, interviews and short clips from popular Showtime offerings
• eBay (coming soon): get real-time updates, place bids, and monitor your favorite items on eBay

Zimlets Anyone?
Even Yahoo!’s Zimbra (our advanced open-source email & collaboration software) is getting into the mix, introducing a handful of new Zimlets (which integrate new features in email, similar to the Yahoo! Mail applications). Automatically save emails as documents, drop sticky notes on messages, and handle expense reports with one click. More information can be found on the Zimbra blog.

By making Yahoo! more open, we’re able to bring all that is good and useful on the Web even closer to your fingertips. We’re constantly adding new apps, so stay tuned for more.

Tapan Bhat
SVP, Integrated Consumer Experiences, Yahoo!

• The Interwebs invade your TV: You probably won’t ditch your computer any time soon, but now your TV can do more than just coddle couch potatoes. The new Yahoo! TV Widgets are here, debuting in Samsung’s new LED TV 7000, letting you multitask with a vengeance as you watch the boob tube. Without interrupting your program, you can check out content from Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Weather, and Flickr as well as (coming soon) great third-party brands like Twitter, the New York Times, Netflix, eBay, CBS Sports, Showtime and MySpace. You’ll find these widgets on TVs and devices from Sony, LG Electronics, Intel, and VIZIO starting this summer. Watch a demo here.
• Inquisitor goes global: A few weeks ago, we rolled out the Inquisitor app for the iPhone for people in the U.S. Now the mobile search app is available in ten more countries, autocompleting keywords and making suggestions so you can spend less time fat-fingering your query. And according to the Twitterverse, it appears to be scoring a spot on quite a number of iPhone first pages. (Note that you’ll need to change the country default in the options menu if you don’t want U.S. search results.) More here.

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

This week, Samsung debuted a smart new TV, the 46-inch LED TV 7000 that features the first implementation of the Yahoo! TV Widgets. I know what you’re saying — I’ve tried that TV-Web mashup thing before. This time it’s different. You’ll find a dock at the bottom of your screen that features a number of customizable widgets for content like Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Weather, Flickr and other great content coming soon. It won’t interrupt your television programming, so you can call up your stock portfolio while watching a baseball game or check for the latest headlines during a slow part of that PBS documentary. It’s multitasking with a vengeance.

But these widgets aren’t limited to Yahoo! content. Since we’ve opened the API to developers, anyone can build a widget, which you can easily download from the Widget Gallery, not unlike an app store. Soon you will be able to add widgets for Twitter, the New York Times, Netflix, eBay, CBS Sports, Showtime and MySpace (just to name a few) to your dock. Perhaps coolest of all, you can access video content through these widgets — so, for example, Blockbuster onDemand movies can stream right from the web to your TV screen. All this with just your remote.

Samsung is first out the door, but TVs and devices from Sony, LG Electronics, Intel, and VIZIO will follow, featuring the Yahoo! Widget Engine beginning this summer.

Since seeing is believing, check out this video demo from Connected TV VP Patrick Barry. Then read the review in the WSJ’s Mossberg Solution.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

• What’s that on my TV?: With the impending digitization of U.S. televisions, many of you might be thinking about buying new sets. You might want to hold off until the new Internet-connected TVs hit the market this spring, fully loaded with widgets powered by the Yahoo! Widget engine. We’ve partnered with manufacturers like Samsung, Sony, LG Electronics and VIZIO to let consumers fire up cool new content while watching TV — everything from Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! Video, Yahoo! Finance and Flickr to widgets from providers like eBay, MySpace, CBS, The New York Times, Netflix, Amazon, Blockbuster, Showtime, USA TODAY, and Twitter. More here.
• Researching your ride: Car on its last legs? Head to Yahoo! Autos, where the team has just spruced up its research pages for car makes, models and trim. Just in are bigger photos, virtual tours, comprehensive user and expert reviews, and pricing data (including the streamlined price-with-options feature). What’s more, they’ve introduced hundreds of new vehicle videos through WheelsTV so you can check out the car before you decide which one to test-drive. And if you’re strapped for cash, they’ve launch used vehicle research pages for cars dating back to 1997. Air fresheners not included. More here.
• It’s Obama TIME: In case you missed it before the holidays, TIME magazine appointed President-elect Barack Obama as the 2008 Person of the Year. Amidst the evidence of his groundswell support, the editors noticed that there were more than 100,000 Obama-related images posted to Flickr, validating the theory that Americans didn’t just elect a President, “they created an icon.” We partnered with TIME to cull the best Obama-related photos and artwork — here are the top 30. Only 11 more days to go!

Subscribe to the RSS feed (or add it to My Yahoo!) to get this Product Pulse every week.

At today’s Intel Developer Forum, Yahoo! and Intel announced the Widget Channel, the first in a series of initiatives that will bring what Yahoo! calls the “Cinematic Internet” even closer to living rooms across America.

The Widget Channel is a television application framework optimized for TV and related consumer electronics devices that use the Intel Architecture. The Widget Channel will be powered by the Yahoo! Widget Engine, an applications platform that will enable TV viewers to interact with and enjoy a rich set of TV Widgets, or small Internet applications designed to complement and enhance the traditional TV watching experience and bring content, information and community features available on the Internet within easy reach of your remote control.

TV Widgets will introduce a new way of interacting with your television. Just imagine that you are watching Dancing With the Stars and you get a phone call from your friend about new Flickr photos they uploaded. But the new season of your favorite reality show has just started, and you don’t want to miss any of the action. You don’t have to go anywhere to view the Flickr album. With a click of your remote, you can bring up the TV Widget dock at the bottom of your TV screen. Your favorite episode of Dancing With the Stars is still viewable, so you can watch your show uninterrupted and check out the new pictures your friend is so eager for you to see.

With the Cinematic Internet, Yahoo! will help to create and enable the ecosystem of Internet-connected TV, which will benefit consumers, device makers, advertisers and publishers. By combining the Internet’s benefits of openness, community and personalization with the broadcast values of dependability and familiarity of TV, we believe this combination will transform traditional TV into something bigger, better, and more exciting for users, content providers and equipment manufacturers—and make Yahoo! a starting point on the TV.

For more information, go visit http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/.

Patrick Barry
VP of Yahoo! Connected TV