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Slate Predicts The End Of TiVo
wiredog writes "Slate has an article about why TiVo (the company, not the idea) is destined to fail. It suffers from the same first mover disadvantage that did in the Newton and the Amiga."
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Just like the Ford Motor Company ...oh wait
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
A site owned by a wannabe PVR maker, bashing the most successful PVR in history. Shocker!
Tivo is dead! What's next? Broadband? Linux! Say it ain't so Billy!
Sorry GameBoy, but the Atari Lynx, Sega GameGear, Sega Nomad and TurboGrafix16 are throwing you into the ash heap of history.
Oh wait!
when i see it.. nice try Microsoft.. how come they can predict the end of Tivo.. yet never saw the end of webTV, ultimateTV, and possibly the ?Xbox?.. Let's believe them for a second.. All Tivo has to do is roll out a less expensive unit ($150-$200 price range) and keep up with the times (how about an hdtv-compatible tivo in the coming years).. I think there's a good possibility that Tivo's will be around for a while..
I suspect that those same families still have their clocks flashing 12:00AM...
:)
Well, my VCR keeps flashing 12:00, but that's because I have no reason to set it anymore, since I've got a TiVo
m.
Photography, technology, and my dog Scout - http://mattstratton.com
Well, the article is about as insightful as a "first-post" troll but I absolutely loved the BestBuy TiVo ad at the end.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
I seem to remember that the first mover in the BASIC interpreter for microcomputers is still around....
What are they called???
Oh, yeah, Microsoft
I hope mine never figures that out, or I'll never get to watch Enterprise - I'll be punished with a TiVo full of Ed, Friends, and Anna Nicole. The horror!
My number one reason is my fiancee. :^)
But HER number one reason is price.
You'll understand why this isn't a plug for MS, but an unbiased article on a site that just happens to be owned by MS.
And when you grow up and stop assuming everyone who is even mildly critical of your employer^H^H^H^H^H^H favorite software vendor isn't necessarilly a troll, perhaps you'll be able to ponder larger pictures and marketing strategies that go beyond a particlar brand item v. another to encompass an attempt at taking over an entire market v. another.
Hint: Microsoft's push toward DRM and Palladium has a lot more to gain by taking over the TiVo market than it does by taking over the playstation market. Why? Tivo is based upon open, non-DRM hardware and an open, GPLed operating system, while playstation is itself a proprietary player and, while it is a competitor, it does not stand in the way of Microsoft's DRM and Palladium strategies, despite having a GNU/Linux kit available for hobbiests. TiVo, on the other hand, as a widely adopted PVR that does use standard PC parts and a free operating system, does represent not only a potential barrier to Microsoft's DRM-and-Palladium-Ueber-Alles strategy, it has two other factors which the PS lacks:
1) Potentially a much larger marketplace than PS (nearly every household has a VCR, while many fewer have game consoles of any kind)
2) A legitimate competitor to whome consumers will flock if given a choice between that and a DRM/Palladium crippled alternative.
Many informed people believe the X-Box may well be a Palladium trial balloon and a test bed for emerging Microsoft DRM technology. If true, its use and penetration of the game console market is incidental compared to those qualities and the value they represent to Microsoft, and in that light it becomes clear that TiVo is a much more potent threat to Microsoft's plans than the playstation is likely to ever become. In which case, throwing a bone to the PS in an attempt to appear "neutral" (which is hardly likely of a Microsoft publication, any more than Linux Weekly is neutral when it posts a link to a pro-Linux article. Even more telling, this article was written by a Microsoft author, not merely linked to by a Microsoft site) costs them nothing in the persuit of their larger strategy.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
must.....not.....listenn...... must....not...buy....wanted.....gadget..... must.....not.....listen...
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
I particularly liked the ad for a tivo i got at the bottom of a page predicting tivo's demise.
"Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
If TIVO would go down I would instantly start up a business broadcasting the data TIVO customers need to keep their TIVO working.
Welcome to capitalism my friend.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Disclaimer: I'm not married, but my girlfriend was living with me for over a year in which I had a Tivo in my living room.
T.V. sucks ass. How can you people stand to watch that kind of banal, mundane completely insipid mind numbing garbage?
You're talking to people reading slashdot comments.
"Lifetime subscription" to a particular piece of hardware that has a [useful] life of only a few years? This is like getting a "lifetime guarantee" on a 2002 desk calendar.
People who don't have a TiVo belong to at least one of these 3 groups:
* Can't afford it
* Don't know what it is
* Don't watch TV.
* Live in Canada.
ut as a happy TiVo subscriber, let me tell you this: I would play twice the current $13/month for the TiVo service.
Don't worry; you will.
You don't get it. Not all tv sucks ass. ReplayTV and Tivo let you through away the ass-sucking and keep the good stuff next door. Seriously. I don't watch junk "just because its on" anymore. My replay is loaded with NOVA, Frontline, Nightline, sundance channel, stuff like that - no Friends, no Survivor, no crapolla content. With one major exception - G-String Divas, but what can I say?
The Newton failed becuase it sucked, not because it was first. :)
The handwriting recognition was incredibly bad.
The handwriting recognition was basically unusable. I know, I have one of the original models. From what I hear people say online, the later models were much better. I guess they just couldn't recover their image after nelson made fun of them on The Simpsons
A friend of mine has a Tivo and aboslutely loves it. There's a big difference from being the first one to put out a shitty product and being to first one to put out a product that gets rave reviews from its owners.
Life is too short to proofread.
When a British media consultancy recently distributed some TiVos, 30 percent of the recipient households "never really got to grips with them"--or, in other words, they preferred to let the pricey boxes gather dust rather than waste another second figuring out the labyrinthine menus.
If any of 30% are reading this I'll give you £100 and a shiney button for it right now!