Internet TV and web based video streaming is gaining
popularity daily, and you know it’s closer to mainstream take-off when big
business jumps on the bandwagon.
IPTV is increasingly making it’s way into more and more
different facets of
the consumer market.
The latest news to push that point further along
is an
Amazon-TiVo joint announcement stating movies available in
Amazon’s
Unbox department will be accessible to all Series 2 and
Series 3 TiVo
set top box owners/users – directly through interaction with
said TiVo boxes – starting today.
Okay, so it’s not technically IPTV if
we’re talking “Internet Protocol Television”.
Same diff, though, folks. It all kind of fits under the same roof.
Anyhow, this is definitely good news, even for those
uninterested in
what TiVo and/or Amazon have to offer.
Increased Competition
It’s going to give
anyone else
in the same biz – or soon to be in the biz (ahem, Apple, ahem)
– a
nudge to move a little more quickly and push equivalent services out
sooner rather than later. Amazon and TiVo gotta have competition, right?
No, no, I haven’t forgotten that Microsoft is
already doing this
very thing with the Xbox 360.
I do recognize the fact that owners of
the platform can rent as many feature-length films (some in
“high-def”
format) as their multi-gig hard drives can consume.
Only, the Amazon-TiVo initiative is a tad different, in that
it puts
to the fore digital downloads. Front and center.
It’s not an
“oh, by
the way” type of delivery. Both partners in the deal will
likely push
this quite hard. Well, at least Amazon will, as it definitely needs
most to see that this direct download experiment turns into a
fast-growing and lucrative success.
Fighting To Become THE Medium
And TiVo must want to get on the
wagon early as well, to see that its platform has a serious chance at
being the medium with which movie viewers
download desired
titles.
No point in waiting for Apple to claim the crown, eh? So,
yeah,
both parties, pushing this hard, looks like a recipe for success.
Possible success, I should say. There’s always the
chance that they
could screw this up.
But I presume they’ve alpha tested this
thing
enough that most users will see that films download after they trigger
the “Rent” or “Buy” buttons on
their television screens, and that
downloads play when TiVo users press play, and so on and so forth.
All we’ve left to do is wait and see how many takers
to this new
service there are after a few weeks’ or months’
time. Only then can we
tell you whether the idea has hit big, stalled, or flopped.
I’d sure
like to see the first scenario take shape. Apple’s had enough
time in
the limelight, don’t you think? I think.
Paul Glazowski is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
