For once, the interactive TV/DVR has beaten mobile to truly market to and make money off the consumer audience. Mobile has definitely been the favorite child for online marketing extension: banking, gaming, alert, even American Idol voting! However, don't give up on television yet as just another dying advertisement dinosaur (i.e. newspaper). Thanks to innovative TiVo, you may soon be able to watch your favorite program and buy the products promoted on the show or its commercials directly through Amazon.com.

TV shows that have already signed up include: The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Colbert Report, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and Burn Notice. That's right, now you can buy every soul-searching product Oprah recommends with one push of a button! 

This isn't a new idea, it's actually been floating around for over a decade since the birth of interactive TV. What is surprising is it finally takes a financially-struggling yet consumer-friendly player to bring this service to the market. Traditional TV providers have not been innovative in this area because their revenue model focuses on customer subscription and they are also rewarded financially for carrying shopping networks. What TiVo lacked (substantial consumer subscription fees), TiVo had to find via other avenues. And I very much expect TiVo to receive a commission for each purchase.

Besides revenue, it also allows TiVo to:

1) gain an advantage over its competitors for its unique partnership and convenient shopping experience

2) further collect consumer behavioral data to improve its targeting

But before you start putting your 401k in TiVo stock, just remember that the TV providers and networks are not sitting ducks. All it takes is a little more time among the incumbent TV providers, TV networks and the equipment providers to come up with a new standard and promote it widely. This will serve as yet another source of revenue for all, especially for the networks that are seeing dwindling advertisement revenue.

Now, if only I could vote for my favorite idol with my remote control...

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