VUDU creates open development platform for TV

They say if you ask, you shall receive. Last week, I asked. I said:

So who is going to bring an open development platform to the TV in a commercially viable way? My money’s on Roku in the short run. Who else has the guts (or the financial imperative) to do this? One backdoor might be to create a TV set top that is truly DLNA compliant. Then people could create PC applications that feed DLNA content to the set top. I’ll keep my eyes on this for you. (For more on this, read my post called Joost’s iPhone App a Sign of Things to Come).

I asked and today I received. VUDU has debuted an open set-top-box development platform called VUDU RIA. At the same time, VUDU made sure to kickstart the application development process by building a bunch of apps to show how easy it is to provide Web-like experiences to their set top boxes. They have flickr, Picasa, YouTube, as well as many online video channels.

This is it, folks. This is what we all have been waiting for. Now if only VUDU could sell more boxes so that developers would have an incentive to fill the world with VUDU applications.

If you don’t understand why I’m so excited, may I direct your attention to the iPhone App Store. This is perhaps the most important decision Apple was ever dragged kicking and screaming to make. The iPhone App Store has created an environment where thousands of developers have innovated to provide consumers with experiences, content, and services that they value. All without having to cut deals with Apple (which would inhibit innovation). Yes, there are still issues with Apple’s random and arbitrary decisions about approving iPhone apps, but this genie is completely out of the bottle and flying high so Apple will have to cede more and more control.

VUDU wants to benefit from that scenario. They can imagine a world in which VUDU RIA becomes a default language for developing TV-based apps. Yes, they want other CE makers to adopt VUDU RIA. They’ve been smart about it — they have designed around a very limited set top box spec: 300 MHz processor with 128MB of RAM. That means a TV maker like VIZIO could design its first Web-ready TVs to that spec and immediately have content to offer buyers, without having to create a custom environment of their own and do content deals. They can simply plug into the dozens and hopefully hundreds of apps built in VUDU RIA.

Of course, they’re not the only ones with this vision. Intel and Yahoo demonstrated a TV widget language they want the world to adopt. But VUDU has a box and real apps, where the Yahtel approach is still an idea for now. And don’t forget Roku and Sling, both of whom I have written about who have a similar ambition.

This is the most important thing that will happen in TV in 2009. The battle of the development platforms. And notice that nary a single cable provider is on the list of combatants. Hmmm.