I love innovation!

Have you seen Amazon.com's Fishbowl?

While surfing the web yesterday, I ran into an innovation I had to write about. Yesterday I came across Amazon.com's Fishbowl. Fishbowl is an innovation from Amazon.com and UPS which marries the power of television entertainment and retailing into the same personal experience, "broadcasting" over the web.

Now commercials have been on television forEVER, and product placement in movies has been around for a decade or more, but "Fishbowl" is completely different. Fishbowl is a weekly video webcast, hosted by Bill Maher, which includes interviews with authors, filmakers and musicians. As each interview is taking place, Amazon.com links are presented below the screen, to enable the viewer to explore more information or to purchase the product.

The links are not obtrusive, so one can enjoy the show without being too distracted by the links, which change with each new guest. The shows can be viewed "live" Thursdays at 8 pm (Pacific) or after the fact, in whole or in part, at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/16305491/red%3Dent%5Fold%5Ffb%5Furl%5F16305511/103-7186298-2958232

Brilliantly, Amazon.com posts all previous shows (which can be played back in whole or in part). Just for fun, I also went to Amazon.com and searched on a specific song that had been featured on the show and voila! - there appeared a link to the performance featured on Fishbowl.

As more and more shows are produced, more and more "clips" will enrich the Amazon.com shopping experience. Only time will tell whether this new form of cooperative marketing effort actually sells more product for Amazon.com and boosts business for UPS, but the innovation is exciting to observe.

I wonder whether the television industry is watching?