November 17, 2004

TIVO Commercials

I came across a post today on PVRblog regarding my TIVO service that has me concerned.

People get TiVos for different reasons, mostly it's for the time shifting nature, but the close second most loved feature has to be the ability to fast forward through ads. The advertising TiVo has added so far has been minimal impact. The commercial showcases that show up on your main menu aren't that bad and often have good ad shorts and information, but pushing that into the main TV watching interface seems like a spectacularly bad move. No longer are the ads an optional thing you can dig for more, they're soon going to be pushed in front of you when you use a key feature of the product.

The ability to fast forward through commercials is perhaps the feature I like best about my TIVO. I think TIVO customers need to stand up and fight this concept while it can still be fought. Sure, it doesn't sound like the Stage 1 implementation will be all that bad but before we know it they'll be limiting the speed of the fast forward feature to give advertisers more time to make an impression. This could be the end of a really good service. I hope this is just a bad rummor but apparently they're testing the UI.

Posted by Cale on Nov 17, 2004

Categories: tech.commentary.tivo
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