Has TiVo Made A Big Mistake?
Ok, I’ll admit it; the fact that TiVo is going to display an advertising pop-up while you fast-forward through commercials isn’t that big of a deal. To be perfectly honest, at first I was a little disappointed with TiVo and their decision however; after further review, I understand why they want to do this. While this isn’t really a big deal, the thing I want to point out is the fact that TiVo hasn’t handled the back-lash from their decision. Ever since the news came out, there has been countless number of articles which talk about the new feature and how TiVo is no longer TV your way. It’s gotten so bad that the other day a friend of mine who doesn’t have a TiVo asked me about why TiVo is going to no longer allow me to skip commercials! I know that TiVo has come out on TiVoCommunity and discussed the pop-ups however; it may be a good idea for them to officially announce the feature in order to kill some of the rumors. If TiVo has officially announced the pop-ups please let me know. I haven’t seen anything as of yet…
December 3rd, 2004 at 1:48 pm |
No
September 13th, 2006 at 4:58 pm |
I’m ok with it. I mean they’ve got stockholders to answer to. Look, the advertising community and the networks are well aware that 70% of all commercials are fast-forwarded past on a TiVo box. Advertising is the backbone of a free market economy - there is big money at steak. If I’m Mr.Z from Chrysler why do I want to pay 350-grand for a 30-second Commercial on 24 when I know that a significant percentage of viewers TiVo it and they are all zipping past it my ads. My fear is that the networks lobby Washington and some beltway turd finds a way to pressure TiVo into disabling the fast forward function all together. Sound’s crazy right? Over the years I have seen many freedoms revoked based on knee-jerk reactions and spurious logic–So if fast forward went the way of lawn darts I wouldn’t be surprised. But this is America and we all have a constitutional right to fast-forward past commercials (Especially the Head ON ads). But, seriously we should all hope that TiVo resists the temptation to offer advertisers an FFB option (Fast-Forward Block). I’m sure they could easily find a way to embed a code in an ad that would disable fast-forward for a price. But from what I know about TiVo’s corporate culture it seems to me that they are not so short sighted. They are to busy building subscriber loyalty and enlarging the subscriber base. They have bigger long-term plans for us… Get ready to do all of your online shopping by pressing the thumbs up button.
Louie Manno