Tivo Selling Out
According to this article
at Yahoo News, the Tivo we all know and love will start popping up
advertisements to users when they fast forward over commercials. That is,
advertisers can now pay to pop up ads for their products even if you skip over
them. There are two reasons I loved Tivo - Skipping commercials and time
shifting of programs. They've just reduced their usefulness by 50% for
me.
I was just about to purchase a couple of new Tivo units to network at home. No freaking way I'm going to do this now. It's probably time to just bite the bullet and put together MythTV - I can use the time Tivo is showing ads to me to build it. What a bunch of idiots.
Update Nov 19, 2004: I came across this post on Tivo's user community forum. It's from a Tivo marketing guy, and basically gives the facts concerning the advertising "upgrade":
I was just about to purchase a couple of new Tivo units to network at home. No freaking way I'm going to do this now. It's probably time to just bite the bullet and put together MythTV - I can use the time Tivo is showing ads to me to build it. What a bunch of idiots.
Update Nov 19, 2004: I came across this post on Tivo's user community forum. It's from a Tivo marketing guy, and basically gives the facts concerning the advertising "upgrade":
Contrary to what a quick skim might suggest, TiVo is not removing fast forward. You can still zip through your program, same as before.Assuming that this is all correct, it doesn't sound as bad as initial reports suggested. However, the whole "tags can be larger and display branding" kind of worries me. Plus, I see enough ads for freaking Coke and Burger King and don't want to be asked if I want to play the Burger King "King the Whopper" interactive game every time I'm trying to watch an episode of CSI or something. The thing is - I want to skip over ads. Now they're back - just in a different form. I know - they're trying to placate the advertisers and hence the TV networks - but hell - who says we have to keep them happy?
The tags mentioned in the article exist today, and have been in use for a couple of years now (including during fast forward).
Rather than generic thumbs-up tags, the new tags can be larger, and display both branding and new options for interactivity (contests, surveys, etc).
Nothing is full screen, nothing blocks your ability to control your television.
The displayed tags are tied to the broadcast commercial. No Coke ads over Pepsi commercials. The tags are only there if the advertiser or broadcaster includes them in the broadcast.
Posted: Wed - November 17, 2004 at 01:55 PM
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