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As technology companies like Google, Sony, and Intel are working to deliver Web content into the living room, Web publishers, content producers, and advertisers are busy looking into the (not so distant) future to determine how to be successful in this new space.

As a Web publisher with a strong video focus, we're used to facing pretty steep technical challenges in trying to get our content onto your TV. It's hard to believe that just two years ago the only device capable of playing Web content on TV was TiVo. With a relatively small installed base of 1.5 million subscribers and proprietary software, it was tough to get on the platform and even tougher to reach a sizable audience.

After Google's announcement last week of their upcoming Google TV service, many speculated whether Apple would respond by refreshing its neglected Apple TV. Though Steve Jobs called the product a "hobby" at its launch, the rumor mill has begun to churn as reports point to an overhauled Apple TV with cloud storage and an attractive $99 price tag. According to gadget blog Engadget, a "a source very close to Apple" has confirmed speculation that a simplified version of the set-top box closely resembling the internals of the upcoming fourth generation iPhone is currently in development.

Capitol Hill is abuzz as Comcast and NBC Universal defend their merger in an antitrust investigation before the Senate Judiciary Committee. While a number of interest groups are commenting on the potential acquisition, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen's blog post offers some hints at how the merger could affect the environment for web TV startups.

Yahoo! announced plans today at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to spread its tentacles deeper into the Internet-connected TV market, inking new deals with TV, media player and processor manufacturers, as well as releasing its widget development kit and signing on with new content partners.

When we looked at the rebirth of the Web TV last year, we had one major reservation - would people really buy a new TV just for the widgets? "Probably not," we said. This year, Yahoo! is bringing the Internet into our other devices, so we don't have to.

Yesterday, Nielsen announced that they will make their new "Internet Meter" available by year's end to measure the online television viewing audience. Until now, this ever-increasing demographic has been left out of U.S. television ratings as Nielsen currently focuses only on live and time-shifted (i.e. DVR) TV viewings. Says the company, the Internet Meter software will be deployed by the end of 2009 to their "People Meter" households - the chosen few whose TV-viewing habits function as the representative sample for measuring a show's success. This new addition to the ratings game is bound to have a major impact on TV monetization efforts as both networks and advertisers will see, officially, how many viewers have tuned in to watch this "2nd screen."

One of the most apparent trends from this month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), was the proliferation of flat panel, internet-connected TVs. Nearly every major television manufacturer was demonstrating some sort of web-to-TV integration, including sets that offered Yahoo widgets, MySpace social networking, and Netflix built directly into the TV sets themselves. This isn't the "Web TV" of days past, but a whole new way to internet-enable the living room. This is the year of the "connected TV."