If you've ever wanted to update your Facebook status or check on an eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) auction without ever leaving your living room sofa, VIZIO may have just the television for you.
Its new line of XVT sets will begin hitting the market next month, but you may want to wait until the fourth quarter before buying into VIZIO's new family of high-performance HDTVs. The first of three models in the XVT series with access to VIA won't hit the market until October.
What's VIA? That's short for VIZIO Internet Apps. Those models will allow viewers to connect to the Internet -- wired or wireless -- and dig into a growing number of third-party applications.
Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI), and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) are all onboard the VIA bandwagon, with apps for consumers to access their offerings. Other apps include eBay, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!'s (Nasdaq: YHOO) Flickr, and RealNetworks' (Nasdaq: RNWK) Rhapsody. Access to the Yahoo! Widget Engine will also open up the customization possibilities.
Couch surfing isn't new. Wi-Fi-enabled flat screens aren't new, either. Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) turned heads with its MediaSmart line of high-def televisions, and it could probably have succeeded if they hadn't been initially priced preposterously high.
The new VIZIO sets are competitively priced, so that's a good start. The company is also raising the stakes by going with a Bluetooth remote control that features a pull-out QWERTY keyboard.
Like any new gee-whiz gadgetry, success isn't a given for VIZIO and its killer apps. There have been many brave attempts to converge the Internet and television since the early WebTV days. However, somebody is going to get it right eventually. And when that somebody does, it will change the way we view television and surf the Web.
You may as well begin pondering the investing implications now. There will be winners and losers when convergence arrives, even if it gets here fashionably late.
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