PayPal to Work with TV Partners on TV-Commerce Applications
SAN FRANCISCO -- Comcast and PayPal said they will work together developing applications that let TV viewers more easily purchase goods through their TV sets or through applications on smartphones and TVs developed by TV companies, executives said at the TV of Tomorrow Conference. Additionally, PayPal said it’s working with TiVo on similar products (See separate report in this issue). “If you're buying something online, you feel a sense of trust with PayPal and you normally feel a sense of simplicity,” said Tony Werner, Comcast chief technology officer: “Both of those are key as you come into the living room. Bringing PayPal in as a partner I think is very powerful."
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The partnership was spurred by former Canoe Ventures executive Arthur Orduna who joined PayPal as a result. “Arthur called me up and said, ‘I really want you to meet these guys,'” Comcast’s Werner said. “I think it’s going to yield some good things."
Together, the companies will explore a number of ways to integrate the ability to purchase products through the TV, said Scott Dunlap, PayPal vice president-marketing technologies. Coupons will be an initial focus, as will be soliciting donations, including for political campaigns, he said. “Presidential campaign donations is something we think will be pretty popular this year,” he said. PayPal isn’t very interested in developing applications for TV itself, Dunlop said. “We know what we do best, and that is just to make sure the payment happens and it’s nice and simple,” he said. But PayPal has become increasingly interested in TV-commerce or T-commerce, because its users have begun handling more and more of their transactions in the living room. Overnight it went from “I'm not sure how to buy on TV” to “I don’t understand why my TV won’t let me buy something,” he said. “We think it’s a huge opportunity and we've put the assets behind it and we're very excited about the latter part of 2012 and 2013,” he said.
Beyond its T-commerce plans, Comcast expects to introduce a slew of new interactive TV products this year, Werner said. “You'll see us put a whole bunch of different ideas about how you control interactive TV that we're working on right now,” he said. And over time its user-interface, which is taking a huge leap forward with its X1 cloud-based interface, will continue to improve, he said. “None of us think it’s the perfect user interface, but the nice thing is that the platform allows us to iterate fairly quickly,” he said. Along those lines, ActiveVideo Networks said it licensed its CloudTV software to Comcast. Comcast is using the software for an advanced VOD user-interface trial in its Chattanooga, Tenn. system.