Amazon Partners With Tivo; Steals Walmart’s Thunder
Steve Poland
21 comments »
On the same day that Walmart launched a competing movie download service and then fell flat on their face over simple browser compatibility issues, Amazon announced an incredibly cool, long rumored new partnership with Tivo.
After several months of rumors, Amazon and TiVo have partnered to make Amazon Unbox content available from user PCs to their broadband-connected TiVo units.
The service hasn’t fully rolled out yet — a few hundred users are testing now. Plan is to roll-out the full service to all consumers by year end. Also, not all TiVo units work for this ( e.g. DirecTV or Comcast) and not all Unbox content either (e.g. Sony and Disney, yet). Other restrictions include: Mac users still can’t watch Amazon Unbox films on their computers, but are able to download them to TiVos; and limits cover two PCs, two TiVos or one of each — PCs can link with two portable devices. Still, this gives Amazon a horse in the race against Apple, which just started selling their Apple TV product. Now both Apple and Amazon have a way of getting their content into your living room even if you don’t have a PC connected to your television.
TiVo owns a coveted spot in millions of living rooms and has terabytes of aggregated viewing data on millions of consumers — when is someone going to wake up and buy? Could you imagine the targeted ads Google could deliver to the TV based on all that mined data? Or does Yahoo / Microsoft want to get that first-mover advantage and have instant ad inventory on the broadband-connected TV?
Editor’s Note: This post was written by guest contributor Steve Poland, whose blog Techquila Shots brainstorms web start-up ideas.
Finally, a solid connection between television show downloads and my TV.
I’m a TiVo user, but there is very little storage so I’m more excited about Apple TV than Amazon -> TiVo. I’ll wait and see what the final specs are, but what I want is a no-monthly-fee video rental option with my TiVo. I’m willing to bet Apple will beat them to that as well.
what you idiots “need” to do is hook up a cheap PC to your television and learn about the wonders of bittorent.
This will be really cool for Tivo users, but for many of us its the catalog that counts. Not having all the studios is a downside, but considering Tivos install-base in the US this might be big
Amazon has been doing some pretty cool stuff lately and this is no different.
I like the comparison to Walmart in your post too. Just goes to show that Amazon is a online company that understands the medium. Walmart understands offline stuff…
Synerigies and infrastructure sharing makes strong business sense.
http://www.tekno-world.blogspot.com
walmart’s “thunder”? walmart never really had any thunder in this field - if anything, they’re just dipping their toes in the water right now to feel the temp
amazon/tivo partnership it can work; the media supplier with the hardware supplier, fair enough - makes sense.
both respected brands for the most part
neither will be the top holder of this market though.
Why does WalMart get ripped for “only” working on about 95-100% of all computers (yes, it doesn’t work with Firefox, but you can still use your free Explorer browser and have it work), while Amazon gets high praise for working ONLY with Tivo, ONLY for certain studios, and ONLY for a limited amount of Tivo boxes at that, etc.? It sounds like it might be a pretty cool service if you have all of the right components in place and if the movies you like are offered by the included studios - I just don’t get the part about disparaging WalMart, that’s all. Apples and oranges, my friend.
@anon.Lol i agree with you.Who in the world will but from there when you can find things for free.
Unless they enforce some proper law strong enough people will keep downloading for freee
Ugh… another half step toward making this easy. Right now I can go down to the local grocery store and rent any of 50 top titles for $1/day from Redbox. THat’s OK but still — it’s a *#*#@*#@)* vending machine. Why can’t I download those same movies onto a set top box? All I want is DVD quality (both video and sound), a rental (not purchase) model, the same titles you can rent at Blockbuster, and legality. Is that really so hard?
Amazon’s Unbox service does offer rental options, and you don’t have to keep the video on your Tivo in order to watch it again later. You can download it again to the same unit at a later time, so you don’t have to worry much about storage. And the rental price is per movie, so there’s no subscription for that.
Don’t you sometimes just want to fastforward to 2020 when all this stuff will work seamlessly together… sigh. My dream would be to put Fry’s out of business not because Fry’s doesn’t rock but man oh man nothing ever works the way you just want it to without having to download this, upload that, buy this router that box this gear that cable…
I’ve been really excited by the moves Amazon has been making also, lately. I just think it’s interesting to watch what kind of initiatives they put in place. It’s very good to see them being a little more aggressive in the market. I don’t always think they get it right in the niche we play in, but that’s ok.
Poor Wal Mart, but I don’t think they should be understimated just yet.
@Amy - I think that 2020 will be very interesting indeed. First, as access to the content opens up, there will be less control from larger brands like Wal-Mart, Amazon or anybody else for that matter. You’ll be able to store HD radio, movies and shows on your petabyte home servers ($499.95 at Costco) and access them from anywhere on the web.
Wal-Mart will not win selling bits. Nor will Amazon. Only things that have to be manufactured will be the domain of retailers - online or offline.
“…fell flat on their face…”
What a riot. Most people would kill to fall flat on their face… and serve 93% of the market right out of the gate.
I haven’t used IE in over 2 years, but I can readily admit an overwhelming majority of paying consumers still do.
What do you think a company like Wal-mart is going to do when they release something new? Beta test that massive Mac/Camino user base?
Love the idea of Walmart’s evil empire loosing some thunder.
Never used a TiVo, probably b/c I’ve almost never gotten good television reception and have never had cable.
I live in Virginia, and I have to say I am disturbed at how industry representatives hastily pushed for “re-regulation” near the end of our legislative session. What can be done to make the choices clearer to citizens so that these decisions are not voted through in the dead of night? It looks like we are going back to the old regulatory system, but with fewer regulatory teeth to protect the interests of the consumers. How convenient for Dominion Power.
What is being done to incentivize utilities to invest more in renewable or carbon-neutral energy sources? I think that utility companies need to start taking some responsibility here and invest in energy sources that are more diverse and will pay long-term dividends. I can appreciate that they have to run a business and make money, but all I hear as a consumer is the power companies complaining about rate caps while they haven’t been innovating in terms of finding new ways to pump out the kilowatts. It’s just like Ford and other US car makers - they went for the quick buck and invested in SUVs when all the strategic voices were saying long-term you had to have energy-efficient choices for consumers as well. If businesses fail because business leaders make bad choices, let’s be very clear about who is at fault.
Also, power companies have done very little to incentivize conservation among their customers. A good way to start would be to make power meters much easier for consumers to read and understand, so we could understand how much power different appliances take and adjust our behavior and purchasing decisions accordingly. If rates are going to increase, then maybe this is a golden opportunity to help Americans start to evolve our behavior by following good old fashioned supply and demand principles. Markets only work when participants have information, and right now the only information that’s readily available to me is the amount of money I owe after I’ve already used the power. This is not enough, and it needs to change.