Ecommerce TV is here!
Amid all the talk of the “convergence” of media, like television and the internet, this has to be one of the best examples yet. Despite much handwringing and navel gazing, it must happen.
Just today, the Wall Street Journal announced on page one that Comcast (TV) is building its own mini internet — a “TV version of the internet, stocked with movies, archived television programs and other interactive features, including a search function.”
Yes, it’s television, but it feels more like an internet.
What’s more, the largest cable provider is now in talks with Google to buy a $5 billion stake in AOL.
Just more ammo to try and fight off the internet players that will allow you to download everything from movies to college football not available by satellite to $2 video iPod downloads of Desperate Housewives.
In the end, it’s going to be great for consumers, or really, those who have time to sit around watching TV. And of course it will be great for those businessses that figure out how to take advantage of the new technologies faster.
For this example, visit www.buycostumes.com. This is a very nice e-commerce site that sells Halloween costumes.
But no big deal.
Now go visit www.buycostumes.tv. It also sells Halloween costumes. But this one I’m calling a big deal.
It streams a 24-hour video just like the Home Shopping Network or QVC. Except it’s online.
And except that people can watch it all over the world.
And except that you can see all the products that aren’t on right now, and you can click to buy any of them right now.
Fifty percent of online shoppers already have broadband, either at work or at home. In 2010, it’s doubtful that any e-commerce site won’t have audio or video product demonstrations, testimonials, or video product pitches.
I think this site works. The idea of QVC online is a virtual nobrainer. And this site is “only about Halloween costumes” in the same way that eBay is was just about Pez dispensers.
I plan to keep watching this site — and the ideas for any e-commerce site are obvious.
In my book, Creating Customers Out of Thin Air: Secrets of Online Marketing for Offline Businesses, I wrote that the internet was invented 1844 — by Samuel Morse. Because that was the first time that humans could send information electronically. Ever since, the only difference is that bandwidth has gotten better.
(By the way, if you don’t have a copy of my book, you can get it free here.
And like the telephone’s improvement over the telegraph, broadband internet’s improvement over the telephone (and television) is as profound. Indeed the “internet QVC” is a big improvent over the original QVC on two counts: the audience is 100% worldwide, and it’s interactive.
Specifically, the difference between the internet and the telephone is the essence of interactive marketing, viz., a two-way conversation independent of time and place. And the consumer controls the time and place of the conversation.
Online, the viewer can choose the exact product they want to see, when they want it see it — and if they’re not enamored with your offer, they’re gone with the click of a mouse.
By the same token, those businesses that can create a better interactive experience, a better two-way conversation will be the ones that thrive.
Businesses that plan to be around in twenty years should be thinking about this a lot.
Your thoughts?
Posted by 
I think it’s brilliant! I have an online store and this would work great with my line of products.
Where can I go to find out more about the technology that they’re using? Can I do something like this low budget?
Fantastic idea!
Wow… I would hate to have to be the one paying their bandwidth bill each month!
From Morse Code to QVC very profound. If we can export this version of consumerizm to China imagine the possiblities!
InsuranceSettlementReview
You are right on brother.
I was a pioneer in the web audio business with now defunct site, Talking-E-Mail.com and TalkingSites.com in 2000. I have been preaching this for 5 years.
With a radio and extensive marketing background I am “very” excited to see this evolution taking place.
In fact, I’m working on a major project in this venue that i believe will blow people away! “Hopefully” it will be out this winter.
Nick Hetcher
nick@nickhetcher.com
A novelty, but no doubt a loser idea in terms of cost. Progressive downloads will overload the server, and true streaming of Flash will be cost prohibitive due to the greed of Macromedia’s pricing scheme.
This looks good, but the video feed does not appear to work with Firefox, and that’s a BIG problem.
Anyone able to view with Firefox.
I think it’s an interesting idea. One that everyone should examine if they want to stay ahead of their internet competition. It’s incredible what they are coming up with. This is the future.
Dog Clothes
Fun Baby Clothes
This sounds really interesting. Hopefully they’ll have some reruns of older shows that we use to watch as kids. It would also be nice to go out without worry about missing your favorite show if you can just pull it up and watch any time.
I think the switch to high speed internet is imminent. The prices are becoming more and more competitive. I don’t know if all sites will have video, but it certainly might be something worth looking at a few years down the road.
Mark
Christening Favors - Baptism Favors
FINALLY!
I’ve been using online video on my websites for more than two years now, and it’s great to finally see people using video to sell their stuff!
A couple of examples of how I use video:
1. http://www.robert-hawthorne.com
2. http://www.videopays.com
There’s no doubt that 2006 will be the “online video revolution”, and any Internet Marketer wanting to stand out from the norm will have to use video in one way or another.
Good find Brad.
Rob
Compressing streaming video is available to the general population through broadband, and and more and more people are accessing high-speed Internet.
As the Internet becomes more like the experience of “watching” TV instead of “reading” a screen, the Internet may become even more of a medium for sales and information.
Once webmasters/website owners embrace the technology, i.e. audio and video effectiveness, the prices will and prohibitive practices will dissolve. The technology will open up to the masses, as the pioneers pay the higher costs of implementing this technology.
What’s unusual about this practice? The pioneers may stand to gain the experience over other e-commerce stores staying on the sidelines as this technology emerges.
Only our vision and budgets will determine the answer.
Mike
Rent to Own-Lease Option Your New Home
It is a great idea!! I enjoy more tv and video kind of elements in the internet. I wish TV would be more interactive. I wouldn’t be suprised, if one day TV and the Internet became one.
-nonszi
work-at-home business
OH Boy, another technology to master! That was my first thought when I saw that article.
I’ll be honest, I felt fear.
I had a fear that I’d be out of business in 5 years - supplanted by a behemoth (or 10 ton gorrila).
Well that’s not necessarily the case. We small, personal businesses will always be able to out-personalise and thus produce a product/service that appears to more suit the needs of the particular consumer.
I’m confident of that. We’ll just have to use video a bit more to do it that’s all.
Cheers
Lukey
I have to say that is pretty impressive. Just like the internet used to be all text using Gopher instead of the WWW, I could very well see that becoming the new standard of the internet. It will take bigger dollars to play the game competitively. Maybe that’s good maybe that’s bad. For now I’ll just stick to my simple James Judd website that doesn’t sell anything.
I do think over time, it will become more streamlined and I am sure there are firms out there that will provide a service to e-commerce stores that want to take advantage of it. Where there is opportunity and technology, people will develop ways to make it useable and do-able for businesses. I have already been toying with adding video to many of the web sites that I design for my clients to make their web sites different and make them stand out. I do think it will be a big hit, I can already imagine the cheesy infomercials we see on tv being on the internet if they aren’t already.
Sheri
http://www.atlantachocolatecompany.com
I have to say that this is one of the most innovative sites I have seen in a very long time. I think that now broadband is a mainstream technology and we aren’t all hanging around on dial up any more that I forsee this s being the way forward for the web as well as e-commerce.
Just as you get one thing down there’s more to do. Optimizing tags, web copy, links, articles, banner ads, google ads, pixel ads, test this test that, update site to convert better…and now video clips! What’s next?
Joy
Children’s Educational Toys
Before y’all get too excited, thought I’d point out:
1. Doesn’t work on a Mac with Firefox. I get an empty screen. There’s a possibility it would have eventually loaded, but if it hasn’t loaded within 10 seconds, I’m outta there. (And yes, I have high-speed broadband.) Non-IE browsers and/or the Mac are used by a not-insignificant share (potentially as high as 20%) of your potential customer base.
2. I get a message saying my computer has the “right stuff” technically, but I really should be using Internet Explorer. Excuse me?
3. Video is cool–I love it personally–but like all Internet “bells and whistles,” it’s going to be vastly overused. It will be very tempting to substitute TV-style commercials for direct marketing methods, and we all know how much money Madison Avenue throws down the drain.
I agree that video is very much a part of the future Internet landscape, but I would counsel any of my clients to use it sparingly and cautiously right now, and make sure it works across all (or at least virtually all) modern browsers.
Sorry, didn’t mean to grouse anonymously on the above post. My mom raised me with better manners than that. Somehow my name got cut off.
Virginia, V3 Graphics
Awesome information..
Yeahh .. great info, Brad
We have to take a look at these sites, and news technologies . Perhaps they will be good, perhaps more work (urggggg - keep it simple - after all is the products .. hummm, people like to see more, when they buy ?
So, we better be preparred
Since i work in not so much competitive market (i work in the portuguese and brasilian market ) , i have time to prepare myself .. Those tech web toys, will only arrive here, in 5 years, ehehe
Perhaps i could manage, to make even more money ?
Lets see
Keep it up
Força ai, rapazes
PQ, at
http://nonioficial.paginas.sapo.pt/
This is an awesome concept. It gives me some great ideas. In fact I just checked GoDaddy to purchase some URLs & the .tv are the most expensive addresses. Thinking of future needs, I just spent some money. I hope I can make it payoff for me in the future. For the guy that wrote in that he couldn’t see the costume site with a Mac, try using Safari. It actually has the same roots as Firefox (the designers were college roomates); but even though it came up at first saying I didn’t have the proper plug-in, I saw it buffering. I closed the pop-up box, and the media started playing just fine. Download Windows Media Player (it may be using this to play the feed, I’m not sure, but Safari works. -Using OS X 10.4).
This is cool.
Sell Your Home
Sell Your House
Hi Brad:
Great find.
I think we have all been expecting and waiting for this to happen.
Like any other technology it will have its teething problems, detractors and advocates.
I think its success will be determined primarily by ensuring its smoth integation with other technologies so that the consumer gets a terrific and useful experience. If it is used creatively and properly it will bring to the consumer a new level of shopping and learning.
If it becomes the “same old” it will fail. Just like what has happened to Network TV.
That said, I think any of us who are serious about being in business for the long term should be using this fairly soon in our businesses so that we can grow with the technology.
Best wishes
Bill
Turning Knowledge into Money
http://www.easydebtsettlement.com
Very cool - interactive is great, but what about being able to jump ahead in the schedule?
Why should I still be held to a schedule if the net is truly interactive?
Jeff
By the way - for us technical geeks, any idea what they are using to synch up the e-commerce panel with the video panel?
Video is fairly straight forward - but synching with the lower panel is pretty cool - is your guess that this was custom designed?
Jeff
I
I can’t see it either and I have windows media and safari. Half of the videos I come across like that don’t work even though I have the correct player. I just personally think that windows media and real player SUCK! HaHa. They are the worst.
Video is the future, sure. But it must be better implemented and seamless. Integrating video into Flash is far more user friendly and seamless and works across all platforms as long as the person has flash, which is already built in to most browsers and most people have it now.
CNET is doing a better job with that and has a far greater example of how it can be used.
http://www.cnet.com/2001-10107_1-0.html?tag=cnetfd.navtab
They have people show off the products and talk about them and give reviews and it is interactive. It’s more like TV.
The more personal and simple people keep it, the better it will do I think. More like video blogs. So everyone will be able to do it on very low budgets. I think high budget productions that are too fancy and too scripted will just alienate people and make them feel not a part of it. Everything’s about reality and personal and intimate now days. Keep it simple. Video Podcasts are taking off too. There will be a lot of internet talk shows and video blogs. After a while it will get to be a bit overwhelming with a lot of annoying videos everywhere. But I think now, people will embrace them because they are tired of reading. They don’t want to read pages and pages of text to find out what your product or site is all about. I’m sure people will start doing video articles too.
Here’s another good example of Flash integration with video that works well for a product site and multi-media pitching. Although more work obviously went into it.
http://www.gosmile.com/university/gosmile_university.html
One more example of how the internet is revolutionizing all aspects of entertainment, commerce, and daily life.
Is this a great time to be alive or what??!!
Hi,
In the UK the company I work for is investing huge sums of money in this area. A whole department of over a 100 people has been setup to look into Ecommerce TV.
Its definitely a technology thats going to make a difference.
Baz
http://www.efonestore.co.uk
Ecommerce TV will definitely be an interesting development to watch. Only large companies with mucho capital will be able to do this effectively, so perhaps this will give the large companies an edge.
it’s about time. I don’t know what’s took so so long. I still think podcast is a better way to go. It’s better to zone in end zone out of something than having to have to watch it all the time.
I do agree this is a great way to sell a car or some real estate. I’m sure there are people are ready working this.
http://www.ultimapromos.com
Unless affordable technology is available-this will just be Walmart et. al stompin’ on the little guys-AGAin.
Definitely a cool thought. About time someone integrated this. Thanks for the post.
Chris
LuxurySatisfaction.com
It sounds good. But I do not see economic profit for Comcast. Am I missing something?