I’m generally not into following internal machinations at Yahoo very closely–corporate twists and turns mean very little unless they have an impact on the products and services we consumers get. But I did read and admire new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s post on the company’s corporate blog today. It’s pretty unflinching in its weighing of the company’s strengths and weaknesses, at least for a public rumination. (I can’t imagine a post at an official Google blog saying anything even slightly critical about that company’s culture–though it’s easier, of course, for Bartz to criticize given that she’s not responsible for anything that’s gone wrong at Yahoo up into this point.

Bartz’s post talks about a corporate reorg and a new Customer Advocacy Group, and promises services that will be awesome, exciting, and make you say “wow.” Fine. Like I say, the proof is in the products, and any changes there are yet to come. But here’s one upcoming Yahoo item that  I am already excited about, which Bartz alludes to in passing: I recently visited the company and checked out its Yahoo Connected TV service, which will be built into TVs from Samsung, Sony, LG, and Vizio. It’s based on Yahoo Widgets–formerly known as Konfabulator, and the technology that pretty much kicked off the trend towards Web widgets a few years ago. The TV-based widgets I saw for news, video, and more looked slick and useful–I left the demo feeling slightly sad that there’s no way I’m going to buy a new TV anytime soon. (The first sets that incorporate the Yahoo software are due next month.)

More on Yahoo Connected TV soon, in a separate post…

 
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