Technology, Culture, Commentary on the Internet Revolution

TiVo Users Soon Able to Enjoy Amazon Unbox

by Jason on February 7th, 2007

The blogosphere is moderately abuzz with the news that Amazon and TiVo have partnered to allow Amazon Unbox users to view their videos on their network connected TiVo boxes.

I saw the original story on the TiVo Blog website.

Any broadband connected TiVo Series2 and Series3 DVR will be able to download and play Unbox videos. Sorry, the service won’t be available for DirecTV TiVo subscribers or TiVo subscribers who use a telephone phone line to access the service. If you fit those qualifications, then you can sign-up for the service to be available to you on TiVo’s website. Right now you’re just submitting your name and e-mail address for more information when it becomes more widespread and out of beta with TiVo.

From the comments listed on the TiVo Blog website, not too many people feel this will take off as an actual service. I disagree though. Although the final iteration may not look like this type of partnership, I think what we’ll see is consumers that have personal choice of a variety of smart terminals that can establish connections to a variety of content providers. It will be very similar to the existing cable company strategy now except that the consumer will be the final decision maker for what channels they decide to open and accept content downloads from.

Whether or not the setup box is a TiVo, iTV, Media Center PC, Slingbox or something else and regardless of if the content is coming from Disney, Fox, Sony, Comedy Central, PBS, ESPN, YouTube or Yahoo. Content will be king and choice will be the throne on which it sits.

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