TiVo, the company that turned on-demand TV — and ad-skipping — into a middle-class norm, wants to transform remote controls into purchasing tools, reports The New York Times.

In partnership with Amazon.com, TiVo is expected to introduce a "product purchase" feature later today. TiVo users will be exposed to links for products like CDs, DVDs and books promoted on talk shows or infomercials. With a click or two, they can arrange a purchase.

Items chosen will be stored in the TiVo system so viewers can finish watching their program. They can review the item afterward or save them

"Just a few years ago, we were viewed with great paranoia as the disruptor," said TiVo CEO Thomas Rogers. "Our goal now is to work with the media industry to come up with ways to resist the downward pressure of less advertising viewing and create a way for advertising on TV to become more effective, more engaging and closer to the sale."

TiVo also liaised with Comcast in hopes of licensing its interactive ad technology to non-TiVo digital recorders. Rogers suggested that brokering interactive ads on behalf of rivals may become a TiVo priority, though he hastened to add "this is not our focus today."

In March of last year, Amazon and TiVo launched "Amazon Unbox on TiVo," which enables Amazon Unbox users to download movies and TV shows to their computers, then port them to TiVo units for on-screen viewing. Four months later, the service improved so users could download rentals straight to TiVo.

Earlier this month TiVo formed a similar relationship with Google's YouTube, enabling fans of the latter to "bookmark" and watch videos from their TVs. Users cannot download YouTube movies, however.

SVP Timothy Hanlon for Denuo, Publicis Groupe's media futures division, suggested the TiVo/Amazon purchasing feature is "a harbinger of what television ultimately should become," but pointed out TiVo is only in around four million or so homes.

"From a national advertising perspective, if it doesn’t get beyond that base it remains nothing more than a curiosity," Hanlon said.