Confirming the theory that one day soon everything will have an app store of some kind, Verizon has launched its Widget Bazaar for
FiOS TV, dedicated to bringing new
interactive experiences to FiOS TV subscribers, starting with Facebook, Twitter, and ESPN Fantasy Football. Don't expect to tap out 140 character missives via remote for now, at launch viewers can only view tweets, not post them or log in to their own accounts, although updating Facebook status and personalized ESPN Fantasy Football info is available. Verizon has promised to publish its SDK to enable "open development" (limited to a select group of developers of course) which should bring many free & for-pay apps to join the current (free) offerings by year-end. Also made official is the addition of
searching and viewing video from blip.tv, Dailymotion and Veoh, plus the
long awaited ability to stream personal videos from a connected PC, available free of charge to Home Media DVR customers.
No word yet on what codecs the updated Home Media Manager software will support for transcoding to MPEG-2 and streaming to the set-top box so keep those MKVs holstered for now and check a few screens of the apps in action in our gallery or a quick video walkthrough embedded after the break.
Update: Verizon let us know it will support FLV, WMV, MPEG-1, AVI, MPG, PM4/M4V, 3GP/3G2
posted Jul 15th 2009 9:09AM
What happens when Twitter runs out of venture capital? Will they get their money from other technology licensing a fee to use the feed? Or by helping start revolutions? Either way, not too shabby.
There's tons of stuff Twitter can do to make money or even to just run as a service. They could sell to Google. They could have paid accounts that companies can use to talk to employees and customers. They could show ads that relate to words in posts.
The excitement over Twitter isn't about teenage narcissism, it's about what Twitter could *potentially* do. Unlike most companies, they seem to be OK with taking it slowly.
i think Twitter would be best as a feature of GMail or Facebook. It doesn't warrant it's own site/login, imho.
Every twitter message will be shortened to 100 characters so that they can tack on 60 characters of content specific advertisement.
An example:
@RamiroGolansGirl: I am watching Bolt with my favorite person...my douche. Summer's Eve for that spring fresh scent that gives you confidence.
@ Todd.Starbuck: Better selling Twitter to Microsoft or Yahoo! - Google already owns Jaiku, and it's also better if Google wasn't too pervasive in everyone's lives.
TV is so 2000.
Twitter: And you though you wasted time on Myspace and Facebook!
I'm glad I'm not on Twitter, Myspace, and Facebook. I prefer real life with real people!
Yet being the second to post on Engaget implies that you have a life? :)
Let see, I'm not posting every waking moment of my life with every little detail given.
I'm at work right now. I have time to respond to Engadget because I'm running several large hydrologic and hydraulic models which means I have to sit wait. Outside of work, I never respond to blog posts or even read blogs.
So yes, I have a life.
I think having to justify to complete strangers that you have a life, without even giving specific details, qualifies you as not having a life. Either way, what exactly is "having a life"? Isn't being a breathing human enough to count as having a life? What's wrong with spending your time doing something you enjoy, i.e. reading about new technology and expressing your opinions about it?
do we really have to update our facebook status or twitter everytime we do something? Hell the gov. won't even need to track us. They'll just sign up for facebook.
And yet my FIOS DVR still records reruns of shows that are set to record "new only" and completely misses new shows other times. At least I'll be able to update my facebook status at how annoyed I am!
That's because Verizon's info in the program guide sucks a lot of the time. "New" labels are often incorrect and sometimes descriptions are wrong about things such as location of a sporting event. I was watching a soccer match last night that was in DC, but the program guide had it in Germany.
Interesting. I'm more interested in the video streaming, though. Hopefully there'll be more details on that at a later date...
zoom zoom
I think it will work fine until you want to see pron.
Ramiro Galan
Watching Naughty Nurse Part XI alone.
:-/
FiOS. Why must you tease me so? Continuing to bring new features and content to your service... a service I am sadly incapable of receiving Minneapolis. Please Verizon... bring your gifts of fiber goodness to the twin cities and I promise to sing your praises even though my Verizon cell service is horrible on a good day.
So you can't do this on a regular HD DVR, it has to be the Home Media DVR?
Not sure about that but they are the same model. I had a regular HD-DVR and upgraded to the Home Media via a phone call. They just pushed some new software to my STB and voila!
Home Media DVR costs around $6 more a month, though.
All this explosion of Facebook and Twitter on almost every new device is freaking me out. It reminds me of that time when mp3 was "the new thing" and you could get mugs with mp3 players.
yo dawg, I herd you like tv, so I put a tv app on your cable box so you can watch while you watch.
Change!!
i resent cablevision more and more every day.
I just don't get anyone who cares that Ramiro and his girlfriend are watching "Bolt", and enough to give up 75% of their own screen.
GDI, U-Verse hurry up with your version of this, I must have it!