TV Goes Interactive: Fashionable Content and Television In Your Home By 2013?

Silicon Valley companies like Google, Yahoo! and Intel are poised to tackle their next venture: Television sets.

Television making giants Samsung, Sony and Vizio are all coming out with Internet ready television sets, and Steve Koenig of the Consumer Electronics Association says that by 2013,  55% (an 18% increase from this year) of shipped televisions will be Internet-ready.

In the hopes of making an impact in interactive television, tech companies are furiously working on their own apps and widgets — hoping that their creations will catch on in a future age when interactive television is the norm.

But how mainstream will interactive television go?   After all, Microsoft bought WebTVNetworks for $425 million in 1997, and it never went anywhere.

Phillip Swann of TVPredictions.com says, “You’ll see more products — I don’t think you’ll necessarily see more adoption…It’s a niche audience. For the large majority of television users, it goes right over their heads.”

Others are more optimistic and see a future of apps, integrated Netflix and Skype, TV ready social media and television shows that viewers can actually respond to right on their television sets.

What might this mean for the future of fashion?  Brands have controversially brought live, streamed webcasts of fashion shows to the Internet, and fashion has made a name for itself on television through shows like Project Runway and television channels like the Style Network.  Style related apps and fashion related blogging have already made huge impacts in democratizing fashion.

Could the future of television make fashion even more interactive and engaging the way livestreaming runway show has?

Photo set courtesy of Polyvore.

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