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TiVo, Amazon Partner For Sales Via TV Remotes

In partnership with Amazon.com, TiVo will introduce a "product purchase" feature today that will allow owners of its video recorders to see, in its onscreen menus, links to buy products like CDs, DVDs and books that guests are promoting on talk shows like "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "The Daily Show."

TiVo also plans to begin offering this feature to advertisers and programmers, so that the chance to buy products and have them delivered will be presented to viewers during commercials and even alongside product placements during live shows.

If a viewer chooses to buy an advertised item during a broadcast, TiVo records the rest of the program so the viewer can easily return to it after the purchase. TiVo users will also be able to save their intended purchases in their Amazon account and return to the site later to complete the transaction. "What we are trying to do is to create all the underpinnings of a future business model for television," says Thomas S. Rogers, CEO of TiVo.

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Read the whole story at The New York Times »

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