You have good reason to be skeptical when someone says millions of ordinary television viewers are about to start surfing the Internet on the living room's electronic hearth.
We've heard that Web-on-your-TV convergence promise for more than a decade, with ambitious efforts to make it happen including AOL TV and WebTV Networks. Each time, the optimists have been wrong.
This year might be different.
Big TV manufacturers including Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Vizio say that they're poised to revolutionize television this Christmas shopping season: They're about to launch the first major marketing push for a new generation of sets that can easily integrate Web content with traditional TV news and entertainment -- without the fuss of connecting the TV to a set-top box.
"When we all open up the newspapers on Jan. 1, and they talk about the hot items from the holiday selling season, Internet-connected TVs are going to be at the top of the list," says Randy Waynick, senior vice president at Sony's Consumer Group.
The campaign could be risky. Consumers may balk if TV sets become too computerlike and complicated. Manufacturers are in a race with cable companies and gadget providers -- including makers of DVRs, Blu-ray players and game machines -- who offer alternative ways to blend the Internet with TV.
But the new versions of Web TVs will soon become the norm in consumer electronics stores. In 2014, consumers in North America will buy 45 million of these sets, representing 69% of all TV sales, ABI Research says. That's up from 6 million and 14% of sales in 2009.
As they catch on, television will become "a completely new ballgame," says Matthew McRae, general manager of advanced technology products at Vizio. Software developers  will flock to the new platform, making Web TVs "the next area of innovation" following computers and cellphones, he says.
Lesson Learned
Manufacturers say they learned an important lesson from earlier convergence failures: Viewers want to relate to sets as televisions, not computers.
That's why the new Web TV models don't come with browsers that would give people the freedom to surf the full Internet, even though the TVs connect to the Web via an ethernet cable or home wireless network . The companies want to promote consumer acceptance of Web TV by making the technology simple to use: That means no keyboard or mouse. (continued...)
© 2010 USA Today under contract with MarketWatch. All rights reserved.
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