TiVo teams up with Amazon

by michelle.sundvick | July 22, 2008 at 10:12 am

881 views | 2 Recommendations | 11 comments

Millions of television viewers were thrilled with TiVo when the company first made it possible to fast-forward through unwanted television commercials. So without all of those advertisements it challenged companies to find other ways to promote their products. Which is when marketing through product placement became increasingly popular. It only makes sense that the next step is to enable TV viewers to actually purchase the products marketed to them through both commercials and even product placements during live shows.

TiVo, the Silicon Valley company that introduced millions to the joy of skipping television commercials, is trying to crack a decades-old media dream. It wants to turn the television remote control into a tool for buying the products being advertised and promoted on commercials and talk shows.

The company, based in Alviso, Calif., will introduce a “product purchase” feature on Tuesday in partnership with the Internet retailer Amazon.com. Owners of TiVo video recorders will see, in TiVo’s various onscreen menus, links to buy products like CDs, DVDs and books that guests are promoting on talk shows like “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Late Show With David Letterman” and “The Daily Show.”

In the months ahead, TiVo plans to begin offering this feature to advertisers and programmers, so that the chance to buy products and have them delivered will be presented to viewers during commercials and even alongside product placements during live shows.

But on TiVo, if a viewer chooses to buy an advertised item during a broadcast, TiVo records the rest of the program so the viewer can easily return to it after the purchase. TiVo users will also be able to save their intended purchases in their Amazon account and return to the site later to complete the transaction.

TiVo and Amazon, based in Seattle, have an existing relationship. Since last year, owners of broadband-connected TiVos have been able to download movies and televisions shows to their set-top boxes from Amazon’s digital video store, now called Amazon Video on Demand. The two companies have not disclosed the financial details of their newest deal, but in general Amazon’s affiliates get a 15 percent slice of a sale when a customer they referred makes a purchase on the site.

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fotofreakske

at 01:08 on July 23rd, 2008

Interesting story. Could be a solution for the future.

rkevwill

at 03:38 on July 23rd, 2008

Tivo at Macworld '07 in San Francisco.

rkevwill has contributed a photo to this story.

phi303

at 07:16 on July 23rd, 2008

great idea but will the "amazon offers" become obtrusive?

phi303 has contributed a photo to this story.

matthewsaindon

at 07:36 on July 23rd, 2008

i can see it now pop-up blockers for your tv.

jakerome

at 08:51 on July 23rd, 2008

Since you asked me to leave a comment, here's my take: Now Public is Now Pointless.

I got a nice note this morning from a Now Public & Flickr member asking if they could use this photo, , in a story about Amazon teaming up with TiVo to make it easier to buy products featured on TV. It's a crap photo, and there were only 3 others posted with the story, so I figured what the hell, why not.

Well, that should have been the clue. There are now about 66 photos (and counting) associated with this story, most of them even crappier than mine. While I appreciate the sentiment behind Now Public, it's rather pointless to host so many essentially irrelevant and mostly crappy photos to display with one story. Why not find 2-3 good photos to post on their site, then link to an appropriate group on Flickr if they want to give their readers a chance to explore more.

Sorry guys, nice idea, but the execution is subpar. The quality of the stories is generally poor, with some consisting almost entirely of quotes from other articles. It's no wonder that I've never visited Now Public other than the times I've gone ahead and approved photos for use.

Pyogenes Gruffer

at 09:50 on July 23rd, 2008

I have many things to entertain me but I'm afraid Now Public is not one of them. If you can make a real difference then that is OK by me. Good luck with this one.

yomgy

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:41 on July 23rd, 2008

michelle.sundvick, I like this story. It's good stuff.