TiVo, Amazon make life harder for people with no impulse control
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I honestly can’t decide whether I think this encourages me to finally invest in a TiVo, or whether it’s just one more reason to stay cocooned in my TiVo-less apartment. From The Earth Times:
TiVo Teams Up With Amazon to Provide TV Advertisers Ability to Enable On-Screen Product Purchasing With the Remote on Any Network, During Any Show
Posted : Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:30:36 GMT
Author : TiVo Inc.. . .
ALVISO, Calif., July 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in advertising solutions and television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced they have teamed up with Amazon to provide consumers with the ability to purchase physical products from Amazon.com on their TV sets, using their TiVo remote control.
. . .
“Product Purchase adds a whole new dimension to the TV viewing experience,” said Evan Young, Director of Broadband Services for TiVo Inc. ” … For example, if a guest on the Daily Show or Oprah has a new book, CD, or DVD out, you can purchase it on Amazon.com using your TiVo remote without missing a second of TV, whether the viewer is watching live or recorded. The viewer with an impulse can buy right away and no longer needs to remember to do so the next time they are at their PC.
. . .
Starting today, TiVo will launch the new service to consumers by merchandising products related to several high profile shows, including but not limited to The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Colbert Report, and Burn Notice. Broadband-connected Series2(TM) Series3(TM) and TiVo HD DVRs will be able to take advantage of this new feature.
Considering that I can so rarely resist buying books I see on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report as it is, this might just be the end of me.
I’m suddenly feeling a sense of sympathy with the Amish; this “progress” is a scary thing!
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5 Comments
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
In other words, “Shop before you think!”
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July 22nd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Ouch! I know my temptation for buying books would definitely be tried if I had a TiVo. I did, however, find a great little used book store in my area that buys back pretty much everything (and sells almost their entire stock at about $4-$6 each). So, at least I’m able to somewhat offset whatever impulses I’m unable to control.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Haha, that’s actually pretty cool. But yes, it has the potential to be very, very dangerous, as I tend to be interested in the majority of the books I see of TDS and TCR.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
You had me at “TiVo, Amazon”.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
I think it’s best that I don’t currently own a TiVo.
It would be interesting to track how many books were sold during and immediately after episodes of TDS and TCR. I’m sure the Colbert bump would be noticeable.
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