New Apps in Web Stores, Interactive TVs Eyed by Content Owners

Media companies are working on new apps to run in Web browsers and on devices such as Internet-enabled TV sets, Internet industry executives said. They said part of their motivation is the prospect of charging for content currently available free on the Web. Media companies are working on new apps to run in Web browsers and on devices such as Internet-enabled TV sets, the executives said. They said part of the motivation is the prospect of charging for content currently available free on the Web.

The success of smartphone apps is spawning new app marketplaces, such as Google’s coming Chrome Web Store and Apple’s planned Mac App Store. Media content owners may be able to use them to extract subscription fees from their content, they said. “Publishers will be very keen to get involved in this,” said Alex Vlasto, vice president of marketing at Alot.com, which is developing a Web-browser app bar similar to a toolbar. “It will simply be another channel to distribute their content, and importantly a channel where … they can have an opportunity to charge for content,” he said.

The new forums for selling and distributing apps will give media companies a chance to develop new user interfaces for their online content, executives said. Through recent programming tools such as HTML5, app developers can provide a much richer experience than they can with conventional websites, said Ryan Massie, executive vice president of Clicker.com. The company developed for Chrome an HTML5 site of Clicker’s online video indexing product. “You can do a lot of things now in browsers that in the past would have taken a full download of an application,” he said. “Everything is moving to the cloud, and the browser is becoming the place where you manage applications.” As a growing number of new TV sets incorporate Internet connectivity and the ability to buy and download apps, companies will increasingly develop apps better suited for that screen, he said. “Just like 10 years ago when people started developing mobile interfaces for their websites, we're thinking we'll have to start doing the same if people are accessing us through their televisions."

Media content owners have been very interested in developing applications for Google’s Chrome Web Store, coming this year, said Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, senior product manager for the store. He said they're attracted to Chrome’s large and growing user base, the new features enabled by designing in HTML5, and the opportunity to develop new business models based on subscription revenue or sole-sponsorship of content through the store. “People are looking at this as an opportunity across all types of content,” he said. Google expects media companies, news organizations, game developers and other content publishers to develop apps for the platform, said Brian Rakowski, director of product management for the Google Chrome team.

Media companies are also creating applications for Web-connected TV sets to take advantage of the growing popularity of browsing the Internet while watching TV, said Russ Schafer, senior director of marketing at Yahoo’s Connected TV group. On sets equipped with Yahoo’s technology, two kinds of applications get the most use, he said: frequent check-in programs that provide news and weather updates, and media applications that allow viewers to watch traditional TV content. TV programmers, including CNBC, the NBA and HBO, already have apps on the new Google TV platform.

The type and amount of programming that content owners make available to these platforms may vary, said Clicker’s Massie. At programmers’ request, Clicker’s online video indexing system can limit access to certain programs based on where the viewer is watching it, he said. “We have a very good process for turning off sources … we can turn off sources if someone is accessing us via their phone or the Web or television."

But TV programmers should be cautious about limiting access on the new platforms, Vlasto said. “If you're basically saying to people ’the only way you can consume this content is via Hulu.com or our TV station,’ that’s really narrow minded, and I think they'll end up shooting themselves in the foot,” he said. He predicted programmers will be more open with their content in the future, as new digital storefronts enable easier payment by viewers and advertisers.