Netflix, YouTube top apps for smart-TV users

If you have an Internet-infused TV set, apparently the apps you’ve just got to have are Netflix and YouTube.

The streaming video apps top the list of most popular smart-TV apps for current owners and consumers, according to a recent Harris Interactive poll.

Facebook, Amazon Instant Video and Pandora round out the poll’s top five.

That’s probably encouraging for manufacturers, eager to translate the popularity of apps on mobile devices into sales of the larger, more sedentary screens they sell.

“It is only a matter of time before we see the mainstream use of additional content apps, such as Facebook, being used on the TV,” Manny Flores, senior vice president at Harris Interactive, said in the news release.

Less encouraging, however, is that the sixth-most popular app on the poll was “none of these.”

“Manufacturers and retailers evidently have to do a much better job of educating their consumers on what a Smart TV is and the benefits of a Smart TV experience,” Flores said.

A better job, indeed. Nearly three-quarters of those polled who don’t own smart TVs are not familiar with the concept at all. And 80% of the unfamiliar respondents said they were not likely to buy Internet-connected sets in the next year.

On top of that, 62% of those who said they were familiar weren’t planning to upgrade to a smart TV either.

“Manufacturers need to hope that familiarity with smartphone and tablet apps translates into greater interest and adoption for apps that can be used on a bigger screen in the living room,” Flores said.

Of course, those TVs are a tad pricier than mobile devices.

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