TiVo-Amazon Deal Offers Onscreen Buying

DVR pioneer aims to create 'underpinnings of a future business model for TV'
By Clay Dillow,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 22, 2008 10:28 AM CDT
TiVo-Amazon Deal Offers Onscreen Buying
Dazzled by J-Lo's Late Show performance? Just press purchase on your Tivo remote and Amazon will send you the album.   (AP Photo/CBS, J.P. Flio)

TiVo and Amazon have teamed to introduce a “product purchase” tool that will allow viewers to buy the products being plugged onscreen, the New York Times reports. Soon, when Oprah Winfrey plugs a book or David Letterman talks up his musical guest, TiVo customers will be able to order said book or CD onscreen via Amazon.com accounts.

As the use of digital video recorders grows, “the majority of commercials in home will be fast-forwarded through,” TiVo’s CEO said. “It is critical that there be a form of advertising and a transactional solution that underpins the DVR.” But with TiVo serving just 4 million customers, “if it doesn’t get beyond that base it remains nothing more than a curiosity” to advertisers, one analyst says. (More TiVo stories.)

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