Roku’s $100 set-top box (U.S.-only) just got even more compelling. The company has launched its own app store of sorts – called the ‘Channel Store’ – that brings a growing number of third-party content sources to the device including Pandora (music streaming) Facebook photos, Flickr (photo sharing), along with FrameChannel, Mediafly’s podcast directory, Revision3 and more. Dave Zatz over at Zatz Not Funny has a few screen grabs and a nifty walk-through video (embedded above). The new content ‘widgets’ join existing partnerships with Netflix, Amazon VOD, and MLB.TV.

Of course, everybody is jumping on the app store or “I want to be a platform game” and it’s a smart move for Roku to do so too. But they are far from the first set-top box to ‘open up’ and go down the app store route. Vudu already has its Rich Internet Application (RIA) Platform, which enables third-parties to extend the device’s content offerings, and Boxee, while not officially on a set-top box yet (coming soon), also has its own Internet TV-oriented app store.

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That changed today, with the company announcing support for a range of free online video from YouTube, MSNBC, CNN, MTV, PBS, and National Geographic, as well as images from photo sharing sites Flickr and Picasso. “The new content will be available via a free firmware update that should hit all Vudu boxes over the next 24 hours”, reports Cnet. And best of all there’s plenty more to come.

See also: AppleTV 2 breaks free from the PC, remains under Apple’s lock and key

That’s because Vudu isn’t providing access to said content through formal licensing agreements but is instead pulling in content through those sites’ own APIs or freely available web feeds. Better still, Vudu is going to open up this feature to third-party developers in the first half of 2009 who’ll be able to add support for more online content.

In other words, Vudu looks like it might be slowly morphing, to some extent at least, into the open Apple TV I’ve been long calling for.

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• Roku launches app store for its set-top box – adds Flickr, Facebook, Pandora and others