Hybrid TVs are com­mon­ly referred to as smart TVs and involve the inte­gra­tion of the Inter­net and Web 2.0 fea­tures. This is a new tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment that has been high­ly pop­u­lar among tech savvy individuals.

If you are not tech savvy, then you might be won­der­ing what exact­ly Web 2.0 is. Web 2.0 is a con­cept that takes the net­work as a plat­form for infor­ma­tion shar­ing and user-cen­tered design on the Inter­net. A web 2.0 web­site lets users con­verse and work togeth­er with each oth­er in a social media exchange as cre­ators of con­tent. This is com­mon­ly referred to as user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent. This pro­vides for more inter­ac­tiv­i­ty and an enhanced user experience.

Smart TV’s allow you to stream your favorite con­tent from sources such as Net­flix and YouTube. This is an excel­lent fea­ture for any­one that loves watch­ing movies or videos online. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to note that you will need an exist­ing Net­flix sub­scrip­tion to access movies on your Smart TV. In addi­tion, you can use video ser­vices such as Hulu Plus and lis­ten to your favorite music on web­sites such as Pan­do­ra and Rhap­sody. Smart TVs can also be inte­grat­ed with social net­work­ing plat­forms such as Twit­ter and Facebook.

Smart TVs such as the one from Intel also have Blu-ray play­ers, which allow you to play your favorite DVDs on your tele­vi­sion if you pre­fer that over ser­vices such as Net­flix. Some Smart TVs such as the LG tele­vi­sion even have a built in micro­phone, which accepts voice commands.

The 5 best smart TV plat­forms of 2011 as rat­ed by PC World include the LG Smart TV, Sam­sung Apps, Vizio Inter­net Apps, Sony Bravia Inter­net Video and the Pana­son­ic Viera Con­nect.  Equi­so is anoth­er com­pa­ny that man­u­fac­tures Smart TVs.   If you are a soft­ware or hard­ware engi­neer and you are inter­est­ed in the mar­ket of Smart TVs then you might want to con­sid­er work­ing for one of these companies.

Most Smart TVs have an app store, which allows you to pur­chase pop­u­lar apps for video, news and music. If you are an app devel­op­er, then you might con­sid­er cre­at­ing some appli­ca­tions, which oth­er indi­vid­u­als can pur­chase via their Smart TV. If you are not an app devel­op­er, then you might con­sid­er apply­ing for a job with one of the com­pa­nies that pro­duces these Smart TVs in anoth­er depart­ment such as infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy, sales, mar­ket­ing or human resources, depend­ing on what your skill set and lev­el of expe­ri­ence is.

You might be won­der­ing what some of the oth­er ben­e­fits of own­ing a Smart TV are. One of the pri­ma­ry ben­e­fits of own­ing a smart TV is that it is high­ly inter­ac­tive which pro­vides for an enhanced user expe­ri­ence and allows you to keep track of what’s going on in terms of social media while you watch tele­vi­sion. This is some­thing that you cer­tain­ly would not be able to do with a tra­di­tion­al tele­vi­sion. Either way, Smart TVs are here to stay and if you are inter­est­ed in this indus­try then you should con­sid­er search­ing for com­pa­nies that pro­duce Smart TVs such as Apple and apply­ing for a job there.