Why should e-commerce be limited to the Internet? A team at IBM Research wants to bring it to the TV screen.
Say you're watching the U.S. Open on ESPN and Tiger Woods hits a huge tee shot on the 18th hole. Suddenly, a small golf ball icon appears in the corner of the screen. You click a button on the remote control and a window opens, offering a deal on Titleist® golf balls as the tournament continues in an inset picture. You enter a few bits of information and the balls are in the mail.
"It's the ultimate impulse buy," says Jurij Paraszczak, senior manager of telecommunications solutions and services at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. "When watching a
movie, you could instantly order the soundtrack. When watching a commercial, you could order the product direct, instead of going to a store."
For any on-screen sale, the cable company and the merchant could have a revenue-sharing deal. All consumers would need is a digital set-top box connected to a commerce server and an ordinary remote. Consumers could preregister credit and delivery information with their cable company.
Or, Paraszczak says, "the set-top box can have a slot that reads your encrypted credit card number stored on a smartcard. You see the golf balls, insert your card, and they're yours."
After 18 months of work, a team from Watson and IBM's China Research Laboratory has demonstrated the technology that vendors, cable companies and viewers would need. Once U.S. standards for digital television technology have solidified, the team intends to finalize its wares into a product.
Mark Fischetti is a freelance writer who lives in Lenox, Massachusetts.
