Starting today, you can see a preview of Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher, Amazon.com’s new weekly program starting in June. Available now: a couple of minutes of highlights, a UPS commercial, and a pretty good nine-minute interview with Stephen King. Says Amazon:

“Every week throughout the summer, the show will feature live performances from renowned musicians and thought-provoking interviews with authors, directors, and actors. Beginning June 1, the show will be streamed every Thursday at Amazon.com at 8 p.m. Pacific / 11 p.m. Eastern.”

Whatever you think of him politically, Maher is a good interviewer. He’s able to get interesting guests, and get interesting stuff out of them. But repurposed TV doesn’t really feel like what the future of Internet video is all about, and this feels like a repurposed Real Time. Still, it’ll be interesting to see if it has any traction … and whether it sells any more books and DVDs.

By the way, I trust that by the time June rolls around, they’ll have fixed it so that amazon.com/fishbowl gets you there.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2006 at 9:41 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff.