Aol continues to invest in the future of TV. They've recently launched a new version of their connected TV app that will be available for Samsung Smart TVs, Rokus, Sony TVs and TiVo devices for the first time. Aol already helps distribute content for TV networks like E! and BBC, and this new app will provide additional reach for their TV partners. We spoke with Rob DelaCruz, General Manager of Connected TV and Mobile Video for the AOL On Network about the launch.

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KIT Digital recently put together a very compelling deck on "10 Things You Need To Know About The Future of Television" for their clients. The 65-slide presentation, authored by KIT's Global Lead Analyst Alan Wolk lays out in very short form the problems and opportunities facing the future of social TV.

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Every so often, there's something at my "real job" at BreakingNews that I can't resist sharing. Today, our team launched a Samsung TV app that brings breaking news alerts to your TV, over any live channel you're watching. When a story breaks, a ticker appears, scrolls the alert and disappears a few seconds later. The Breaking News app also features a consistent ticker of the moment's biggest stories, and you can set...

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Here's a fascinating data point. Speaking at a London conference this week, BBC's Daniel Danker shared how the network's video platform, iPlayer, gets four times as much traffic from its iPad app than from its connected TV apps -- even though there are twice as many connected TV app installs. He took the opportunity to urge connected TV makers to simplify their offerings, build user interfaces that work for TV and stop pushing firmware updates.

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Clik is a new platform launching today that investor Fred Wilson says is "bordering on magic," and the best way to describe it is to walk you through how it works, using YouTube as a demonstration. I downloaded the demo app from Clik on my iPhone and launched it. It instructed me to go to ClikThis.com on my computer, which after a few moments displayed a circular QR-looking code (right). The app (left) asked to point my phone's camera at the computer screen...

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For the Super Bowl, the connected TV marketing company CTV Advertising conducted a survey. It worked with ten heavy-consuming TV viewers ("couch consultants") around the country, and asked them to fill out questionnaires before and after the game about "companion applications," with an emphasis on synchronized advertising. And the results are in:

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The Connected TV Marketing Association (CTVMA) launched yesterday in New York, London and Melbourne, Australia, along with individuals from 47 chapters around the world. With projections that connected TVs "make up to 90% of the global TV market by 2014, with sales reaching 123 million," the CTVMA was founded to help organize and promote a quickly-growing industry.

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Like an increasing number of connected TV sets, Sony's Bravia sets are adding built-in Facebook and Twitter integration, along with the addition of YouTube HD. The Twitter ticker scrolls tweets from your account along the bottom of the screen...

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With CES inching closer, the connected, smart, Internet-enabled TV market continuing to heat up. In fact, the Connected TV Marketing Association (CTVMA) just launched this week, which strives to promote and grow the quickly-emerging connected TV business. One company that's already been developing connected TV apps for three years is Flingo, a company that builds "super apps for smart TVs," on Insignia, LG, Samsung, Vizio, Sanyo, Western Digital, and Netgear devices. Last month the company announced they'd be working with Collective Digital Studio to bring YouTube celebs The Annoying Orange, Fred, iJustine and FreddieW delivered straight to connected TV sets -- a step to create a new kind of primetime on TV for these stars.

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Ad provider Yume has partnered with LG to become the first ad platform built into an internet-connected TV set. Yume will power ads inside the LG Smart TV navigation experience as well as pre-rolls inside apps themselves. For Yume, this opens up a new world of previously untapped ad revenue. "Over the past several years we have offered in-player, in-app, and now in-TV ad solutions," said Jayant Kadambi, CEO of Yume. "Even as consumer attention fractures, we offer brands a way to seamlessly reach consumers at every stage of interaction with the TV, and across all platforms and devices."

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