TiVo, Amazon partner on purchase feature
Show-related products can be bought with DVR
By Danny King -- Video Business, 7/22/2008
JULY 22 | TiVo has partnered with Amazon to allow TV watchers to user their TiVo digital video recorders to buy products directly from Internet retail giant.
The new function, called Product Purchase, allows advertisers whose products are on certain shows include on-screen links that customers can click on with their TiVo remote control to make a purchase. The service launched today with products related to shows such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Colbert Report.
U.S. DVR ownership will jump 75% within the next four years as satellite companies take market share from TiVo, research firm Strategy Analytics said last month. Although TiVo has boosted earnings in recent quarters, it’s still suffering a year-over-year subscriber decline because of an expiring contract with U.S. satellite leader DirecTV. TiVo also is in litigation with No. 2 satellite operator Dish, winning a patent-infringement decision before Dish sued in May for statements TiVo made about the case.
The Product Purchase feature launched less than a week after Amazon began a beta video-on-demand service for streaming video, which is believed to be a future replacement for the etailer's two-year-old Unbox video-download service.
Amazon and TiVo had partnered on Unbox since last July, when they began a service that allowed customers to download Amazon videos directly to their TVs through TiVo DVRs. With the new beta service, TiVo customers cannot stream videos on their TVs, but they can still download through Unbox.
Amazon releases its second-quarter results tomorrow.
