Are you ready to shop until the altitude drops?
JetBlue (NASDAQ:JBLU) is beefing up its Wi-Fi connectivity, allowing passengers to browse the virtual aisles of Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) as it widens the list of email access providers.
Still in beta on select planes, JetBlue's Wi-Fi program originally allowed access only to the email servers of Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Research In Motion's (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry. Now users tethered to Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and AOL's email platforms can also stay connected on JetBlue.
JetBlue is offering the service for free, though I suspect it'll offer greater connectivity at a premium price somewhere down the line. Passengers will probably never have unfiltered access to the Web, though. The last thing you want on a plane is pandemonium over someone opening a page about airborne explosives, X-rated imagery, or my article dissing companies that I allege will no longer be great.
JetBlue will no doubt continue to add approved sites -- ideally e-commerce and content companies that give JetBlue a cut of any commissionable sales or ad revenue. The way jet fuel prices have skyrocketed, JetBlue can use the money.
It certainly shouldn't surprise anyone to see JetBlue at the forefront of sky-high leisure. JetBlue may be a low-cost carrier, but that doesn't mean it's no frills; its flights offer everything from satellite radio to DirecTV (NASDAQ:DTV) programming.
The ability to stroll through Amazon.com's storefront while in flight is also genius -- it'll certainly beat rifling through some of the outlandish SkyMall catalogs. Now let's see Fool.com make the cut, so I can check stock quotes, financial headlines, and the hate mail in the comment box below from folks who would prefer SkyMall to Amazon.
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