Search giants court TiVo

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cable companies or set-top-box manufacturers to plug in its service similar to that of TiVo's. The difference in the two strategies is that TiVo does not want to license or own the content it distributes, at least for now. And Akimbo has yet to develop a substantial subscriber base.

TiVo has long been seen as a takeover candidate, given its relatively small size, lack of profits and its ambitions to challenge television and cable industry giants. Among its chief attractions is its brand, which is to DVRs, or digital video recorders, what Xerox is to copiers. Apple Computer, Sony and Comcast have all been mentioned as potential suitors, although no offers for the company have been confirmed.

TiVo's courting of Internet search engines comes as the company's fortunes are reviving, thanks to a recent deal with cable giant Comcast that would see the DVR-maker co-develop a version of its video recording service that Comcast would offer as an option to its 21.5 million cable subscribers.

Setting itself apart
The Google alliance would be the latest in TiVo's efforts to create new services to differentiate itself from a crowding DVR market.

TiVo has been developing what it calls its Tahiti strategy for nearly two years. Services being developed as part of the strategy aim to make Internet content available to TiVo DVR subscribers on their television. Initial efforts include: making movies and trailers downloadable to a TiVo recorder from an Internet-connected PC; buying products through the TiVo interface; and searching local movie theater listings.

Synergies between the Web search giants and TiVo could include transferring the multibillion-dollar pay-for-performance advertising model from the Web to television. Last year, TiVo's president said the company was developing a technology infrastructure that would enable content owners to pay for exposure in search results for video. Google and Yahoo both specialize in the same business, but for the Web.

TiVo has also made content on its recorders available on PCs through its TiVoToGo service.

TiVo has become especially aggressive recently in efforts to develop new services as competition has increased in the DVR market. New Tahiti services are expected to become available throughout the year, Chief Executive Mike Ramsay said earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The CEO's visions for such efforts are so ambitious that he expects the model where Internet-related content is played on televisions to challenge the broadcast television industry in the next 10 years.

The DVR pioneer has to have such grand visions for its service, otherwise it risks being lost in the woods as other companies try to pick off customers. The biggest threat to its business involves TiVo's largest customer, DirecTV.

The satellite service operator accounts for more than half of TiVo's subscribers. DirecTV said it would use software developer NDS as a second supplier for DVR technology. DirecTV has not turned on features beyond TiVo's core DVR service, such as Home Media features, to the chagrin of DirecTV TiVo subscribers.

In addition, a DVR feature is at the heart of Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition, and satellite service company EchoStar Communications also features a DVR in its set-top boxes.

Comcast also launched a DVR feature for its cable service, which was a blow to TiVo's efforts to woo the leading cable company in the United States. However, in a coup, TiVo managed to ink a distribution deal that will kick in with the first of their co-developed products in mid- to late-2006 and will use the TiVo brand.

Despite the addition of Comcast as a partner, TiVo has been developing new features and advertising methods to again set itself apart from the television industry.

"There are those out there who think that DVR is the endgame," Ramsay said at CES earlier this year. "DVR is not the endgame, it's just the beginning."

[Earl Benser]

TiVo is still looking...

.. 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...

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?

[Shawn Lane]

Good Idea

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.

[montgomeryburns]

Fire Molly Wood

Fire Molly Wood.

Getting TiVo out of the box

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.

[rajat81]

Why TiVo needs Google ?

Well i dont think why TiVo will marry google. More thoughts are here...

https://rajatgupta.wordpress.com/2006/05/26/why-tivo-needs-google/