Yahoo Connected TV Paid Apps Coming In 2011

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Yahoo Connected TVs are kind of a big deal – it’s platform that Yahoo developed that allows widget-style “apps” to be run on the TV set. They’ve been around for over a year, but because it’s, well, Yahoo, behind it, nobody is really paying attention to them. But, with Google TV out there and the possibility of apps on the Apple TV, Yahoo is upping the ante by allowing paid apps, starting next year.

Yahoo Connected TVs can be purchased from Samsung, Sony, VIZIO, LG or Toshiba. Yahoo has provided the API for third-party developers to produce apps for a while, but they haven’t been able to charge for those apps. As you can imagine, at most points, apps on this platform are things like “The Weather Channel” and “Facebook”.

Developers can now create paid apps via the SDK and they’ll be able to set a one-time price between $0.99 and $99. Yahoo will handle payments, of course and it’ll be open to developers from the US, UK, Germany, Spain, Sweden, France, Canada and Australia.

Obviously, the pipe dream here isn’t more or less games on your TV, but content providers would make their own apps, like HBO or whatever, who would allow you to bypass the cable provider and get shows like True Blood and Big Love directly from HBO for buying a $99 app (or something like that.) At the moment, it doesn’t look like Yahoo will allow recurring payments, so it isn’t clear how that would be monetized, but that’s our dream for this stuff.

Do you have a Yahoo Connected TV? Do you think allowed paid apps is a big deal? Tell us about it in the comments section.