Amazon Unbox on TiVo venture

As Thomas Ricker writes at engadget, new product announcements for "this year" usually roll out towards the end of the year, or even into the next year.  Not so with Amazon and TiVo which are ready to enable us to download TV shows or movies directly from Amazon Unbox to our TiVos via the web (rental or purchase).  Not shocking in retrospect - both companies have solid track records of beating expectations.  Also, as this TiVo lovers blog suggests, we'll likely gain the ability to browse Amazon from our TV as well and order that way (via either TiVo or a third party developing the functionality). 

This is becoming a very crowded space as everyone understands the disruption that today's Internet and software technology will cause to our TV viewing experience.  NetFlix, Apple, Blockbuster, Amazon/TiVo, video on demand, IPTV ventures, likely Cisco (envision a combo of Scientific Atlanta, Linksys, and who knows what other upcoming acquisitions), increasingly Microsoft (Xbox already offering exclusive downloads of certain videos), Wal-Mart, etc.  And of course every entity on Madison Avenue (advertising) and Hollywood seems to be more interested in our video/movie/TV viewing than we are.  So, it will be a fragmented market.

However, Amazon/TiVo could be extremely interesting if they can grab a piece of that market.  I blogged about his a bit after last month's  initial announcement: Amazon could pair our online purchasing data for their vast array of products and services, now including movies and TV shows, with our TV viewing habits from TiVo, and combine that data with data that Amazon has been building for years with their ratings, reviews, and recommendation engines.  Very valuable data to Hollywood and Madison Avenue.  And it could be very valuable data for us as well. 

When we get to the point where we are no longer forced to buy 100s of channels of content from our cable provider in order to see the few programs that we care about, and we are only presented with advertising that is customized to our individual situations, who better than Amazon to be the interface between us as viewers, Hollywood, and Madison Avenue?  As I write that, Google comes to mind as well (data from our search and browsing habits, including ad clicking).  So let's be really ambitious and consider an Amazon/Google/TiVo partnership to help bring us into the new generation of customized, a la Cart, IP-based  TV/video/advertisement viewing.  This combo would provide us with aggregation, filtering, recommendation (community based of course), search, purchasing, fulfillment, etc. services as a start.  And that doesn't even consider making it an interactive experience. 

Certainly the future of TV (and all media) is individualized choices from virtually infinite content choices (delivered over IP), with some powerful technology to mediate and enhance our user experience.  It is a large leap from an Amazon/TiVo product introduction to that future paradigm, but is interesting to think about.