Sony will add in-program shopping to its TVs and Blu-ray players
You can't escape e-commerce on the big screen.
It's about to become a little too easy to impulse-shop through your TV. Sony is partnering with Connekt to add a "Buy Now" button to its TVs and Blu-ray players. It'll start immediately through making Connekt's ShopTV app available through Sony's app store on Android sets, but you'll eventually see this extend to "in-program purchasing" as well as voice-controlled shopping. Yes, if you simply must own that hot outfit you saw in a TV show, you could theoretically buy it before the next commercial break.
You won't be hurting for selection. ShopTV currently offers access to "thousands" of goods, including from big-name stores like Best Buy and Macy's. The app is widely compatible and should run on most Sony TVs from 2013 onward.
Attempts to fuse TV and shopping aren't new, and this certainly isn't the only intrusion of raw commercialism into the TV viewing experience (just ask smart TV owners who've had to see ads in the main interface). With that said, it's not often that you see TV makers set out to integrate shopping on this level. And so long as it's optional, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
