Palm Envy: Traditional Services Just Won’t Cut It

Big telcos, incumbent MSOs and competitors alike are taking a page from Apple Inc. and Palm Inc.’s widget strategies. Not because they want to, but because they have to.

You’ve probably heard the theory of the long tail: It’s the idea that serving a large number of niches and providing a little something for everyone adds up to a lot, cumulatively. It’s something mobile device companies have managed to do well, by flinging open the door to developers to build widgets. Now, under fire from any number of threats, be it online video and other over the top players or mobile operators, traditional wireline companies see a critical need to let users personalize their services through apps, thus making them stickier, more differentiated and ultimately viable. Traditional services alone just won’t cut it.

Consider Verizon Communications Inc., which has started adding widgets to its FiOS broadband and television offering. Just last week it launched Twitter and Facebook applications for its television service, and had more than a million Twitter users within three days of launch. It turns out that the ability to customize your television screen view with, say, a Facebook fan page on the show you’re tuned into, or Twitter feeds running along the side of whatever you’re watching, are compelling ideas. Verizon aims to blur the line between Web and television by opening up its FiOS TV service to third-party developers to write applications that will do all of that and more.

Sure, we all remember Web TV. And the idea of click-to-order television ads has been around for a while. But in practice, Caller ID on the television screen has pretty much been the only mainstream mash-up of triple play services. But now carriers are emulating what’s happening with mobility and the third-party application store model by giving developers and Internet companies like the Googles and Amazons of the world access to open APIs for their networks. The fruits of their labor will be a variety of widgets that mash up television and Web content for relevant (or irrelevant) purposes.

"Subscribers will be able to go to a catalog of widget services, a bazaar, and choose the ones to display on their FiOS TV systems," Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe said.

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