Comments on: Search giants court TiVo

Company is in talks with search giants Google and Yahoo over possible deal aimed at bridging television and Web, CNET News.com has learned.

TiVo is still looking...

by Earl Benser April 18, 2005 5:08 AM PDT

.. for some way to survive it's own stupidity. The world needs a
new DVR design to put TiVo out of it's misery.

Putting TiVo out of its misery...
by April 18, 2005 1:01 PM PDT: is apparently harder than one might think. TiVo has been the top selling DVR forever. Action Replay went broke but are still limping along. Comcast and the other cable giants push their own DVRs but only a few are as user friendly as TiVo. TiVo is on the right track, they are securing their intellectual properties and patents, they are working deals with Comcast, and doing away with their rebate system.

Some things they need to address:
Dual tuners
Inexpensive HD content

Maybe this partnering with Search Giants is the next step in the Tivolution?; Like this

Good Idea
by Shawn Lane April 18, 2005 7:22 AM PDT: I think this sounds like a good idea. The problem will be with the cable and tv operators. They are not going to want this to occur. There is nothing in it for them. Plus advertising dollars will be lost unless there is a way to advertise either during or before the broadcast. I hope it happens, but I think it take some time for it to happen.; Like this Reply to this comment

Fire Molly Wood
by montgomeryburns April 19, 2005 3:55 PM PDT: Fire Molly Wood.; Like this Reply to this comment

Getting TiVo out of the box
by April 22, 2005 9:49 AM PDT: These talks could be very strategic, as a major step toward creating a new service category and cementing TiVo's place in the media world. This is described in my blog entry A New "Blue Ocean Strategy" for TiVo and related posts.

Tivo as a DVR box is little more than a commodity, but TiVo as "TV your way" and as "an easy way to find and control content from any broadcast or broadband source" is an important new "media concierge" service.

The power is in getting out of the box, and in serving the user as a media broker -- not being overly wedded to any content source or any media gateway box. (Google may be more tuned to being content source agnostic, and not pushing its own content, but Yahoo could do that as well.) A TiVo concierge service could favor Tivo boxes and its portal's own content, but fails the user if it does not also address all content and all boxes.; Like this Reply to this comment