Tivo To Also Offer Ads Your Way

FangVT writes "InfoWorld is reporting that in mid-2006 Tivo will begin allowing subscribers use keyword searches to look for information on specific products or services. The article does not contain much information but ultimately says 'Throwing in lots of hedge words to soften the idea of advertising once again mingling with TV content, TiVo described the service as non-intrusive, relevant, interactive advertising on an opt-in basis.' Tivo's own press release says, 'For the first time, advertisers will have the ability to deliver television advertising, on demand and targeted to consumers, without the limitations of traditional television media placement.'"

Comments

odd

[ajdowntown]

i is funny, the company that first taught us there is life without advertising is the one trying to bring it back full tilt...

Re:odd

[/ASCII]

I love it. It puts the power over the consumers eyeballs even more firmly in the hands of the consumer.

That said, I doubt very many consumers will use this very often.

Undermining their business model?

[indros13]

TiVo should be wary of this decision, for three reasons:

1) The ad service will be opt-in, but how much do they plan on nagging customers to do so? And who wants to be nagged about having ads, anyway, especially if you bought the thing to avoid them?

2) Targeted ads are certainly more effective, as Google has shown, but it's still advertising in a space buyers have come to expect no ads or ad-skipping.

3) TiVo built the entire model of PVR around the ability to skip ads and record shows more simply than on a VCR. They could do serious damage to their brand image if they embrace advertising after professing to help people avoid it.

While I'm glad they plan to make it opt-in and targeted, I'm still skeptical that they'll find profit at the end of the advertising rainbow by alienating their customers.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[StereoPC]

Bottom line - Tivo needs revenue - If they don't mold their business model to be able to tweak some cash out of advertisers none of us will have a Tivo. They are still struggling to even nail down a business model that shows a profit. Personally, I view all content they throw on the machine no matter how painful because I know they know I watched it which allows them to show the advertisers - Hey, see how many people watched this other companies ad! Some of it is good - it has shown me stuff I wouldn't have gone looking for and I ended up watching regularly (Nip/Tuck). I will gladly opt-in for targeted adds (keyword searching for an ad is a cool concept too) to be able to keep my Tivo for years to come. I have used the cable providers version of Tivo and they are extremely painful to use ... they just don't compare. I believe Tivo didn't make this decision lightly and will approach this with respect for their customers as they have always done in the past.

Re:Undermining their business model?

[Shakrai]

If they stopped the ability to fast forward they would have a riot on their hands and would lose a lot of customers. I highly doubt they would slay that goose laying the golden egg.

I find the 30 second skip invaluable. With five or six presses I can jump past the commercials -- it takes about two seconds to completely bypass them. If I try to fast forward it then not only will it take more time, but TiVo has that really annoying feature where it backtracks a few seconds after you come out of fast forwarding/rewinding. I've never quite got the hang of the timing on that and if I try to use FF or RW I usually wind up watching the last 10 seconds of a commercial.

It's been my experience that most commercial breaks mesh very well with the 30 second skip button. You get a feel for the channel and show you are watching and can usually predict how many 30 second skips you'll need. The few times that you go past your show you can get back to it with the 8 second replay feature.

MythTv in my future...

[dslauson]

Opt-in targeted advertising is better than being held as a captive audience, but I'm not sure I'm crazy about them using my bandwidth and precious hard drive space to store their ads that I may never watch. I think it's getting close to time for me to try out MythTv. Hmm.

Two Way Street...

[dada21]

The video broadcast companies are probably going to need to do a more interactive form of advertising, and I believe that Tivo/Viiv/MCE and other PVR companies will be the ones to promote it. I think I have a decent solution to the conundrum of advertising.

First, advertisers will need to pick a more specific market ("target").

Second, shows will have to become more a la carte. This probably means significant DRM, but there is no "right" to television, so I don't see a way around this. If you want to watch the show "real time" you can pay for it now, or you can wait for it to be released on DVD (or public domain download).

How can you pay for the show? One of three ways:

A. You can use advertising points to watch it. Advertising points are "earned" by watching targeted ads that are pre-downloaded to your Tivo/MCE. These are communicated back to the producer. Maybe a small questionnaire at the end will earn you more points.

B. You can pay for the show up front -- a la carte.

C. You can pay for a subscription to the show for the season.

I don't see any other way for advertising to work, other than product placement. If advertisers and content producers think Tivo is bad now, just wait another year when vidcasts replace the news, and amateur shows pick up another level of refinement. I've already heard from local actor's studios regarding making "free" TV shows to release to the web to advertise their abilities. All we need is one or two huge popular shows online for every city and town to have a free actor's studio making interesting television.

Advertising will be more direct -- and bidirectional.

Let the ranting begin ...

[Monoman]

DISCLAIMER: I own a Tivo .. ok I own a few Tivos.

Here come the Tivo flames.

Try to keep in mind that Tivo is in a very tough spot. They are trying to balance the wishes of their customers while keeping the greedy-money-grabbing content owners happy.

Bash them all you want but it can't be easy. Sadly I think Tivo is going to lose out to the cable and sattelite providers building their own DVRs into their set-top boxes. They will probably be inferior products but you won't have a choice.

For all you Myth fans I paraphrase and old Debian t-shirt.

"MythTV. What your mother would use if it were 20 times easier."

Myth is getting better but it is no Tivo or Replay.

Time to build my own Media Center

[Blacklotuz]

I've been a loyal TiVo fan for years. I've got a Series 1 Phillips TiVo unit which I modded with ethernet, a bigger hard drive, TiVoWeb, etc. At first I was willing to pay for the box AND pay the $12.99/month to get updated listings, but recently I've felt like my TiVo is being taken away from me. The showcases and ads in the unit have long anoyed me, I wished I could tell my own TiVo to stop recording ads, but I let it be since it wasnt causing me any harm. Now they add the ability for broadcasters to tell me what I can and can't record and are greatly expanding their advertising, I'm going to cancel my subscription!

The problem is the business model is all wrong. I expect that when I purchase a device AND a subscription to a service that I'm compensating the company for the service which I receive. $12.99/month for TV listings is already a bit steep and I could subscribe to TV Guide cheeper than that, why should I have to pay to be advertised to as well? If they gave away the units and charged a bit for an ad supported service or if they charged for the units but supported the free TV listings with ads I could accept that but I'm feeling more and more like I bought a device that requires me to pay $12.99/month to watch 'custom tailored' ads, but I think I'll be sticking with the ads I get for free.

Why not just get a DVR?

[digitaldc]

Get one of these: http://www.sjtelecommunications.com/pan-wj-hd316a- 5500.html or more affordable: http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?dpno=53 7524&store=ecost&source=ewbfroogle&adcampaign=emai l,ewbfroogle
and no more ads period?

What is the incentive to use Tivo when they are starting to incorporate ads? Why not just buy a DVR and skip the commercials?

Re:Searchable ads on Tivo?

[voice_of_all_reason]

I'll direct you to this helpful timeline for capitalism:

Step 1 - Free, no ads
Step 2 - Free, with ads
Step 3 - Pay, no ads
Step 4 - Pay, with ads

Tivo is between steps 3 and 4 right now. As with every other service, it will soon be at step 4.

Re:TiVo, the good and the bad

[MarkGriz]

I'm all for the DIY spirit of Myth/Freevo etc, but I can't quite wrap my brain around people claiming Tivo is too expensive, and then building a Myth box instead.

You can get the Tivo box for $50 after rebate, and $299 for lifetime service. Circuit City recently even had the Tivo free after rebate if you ordered it online (with free shipping too).

So basically, it's $350 worst case. How cheaply can you build a Myth box?

A really interesting thread

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is one of the most interesting discussions I've seen on SlashDot in a long time.

If there are Slashdotter's from waaay back this is exactly what happened when Google was started, right here, on Slashdot.

All these common people are voicing what they want, what they don't want, and championing the good and the bad of various business models.

I'll bet someone really is listening.. and the next Bill Gates empire will be built from it.

Fundamentally I think its about control and fashion, some people want to move or control the culture and tell you what is fashionable and have you pay them for it.. they aren't really giving you anything so much as forcing you to pay them for producing anything.. other people would call it extorsion.. but that seems the end state of all monopolies.

I mean Microsoft Windows started out as the underdog, and offered features in a better competing product (Apple Mac) at a cheaper price.. then like all monopolies they grew to the point where they felt they should be driving their industry and became a big bad monopoly.

Once a monopoly outlives its creators.. or outlives their interest in their creation.. it turns into a cash cow.. and sorta fuedualistic.. it attracts all kinds of cooky people like Rasmusen the Mad monk to Czars and Czarinas.. and hence you get Advertisers..

Don't really worry about TiVO.. its time has come and gone.. it was a great idea.. but I think MythTV and a subscription model of Hollywood which caters to niches is on the horizon.. you'll be voting with your PayPal accounts soon. Then Ads will become a thing of the past.. and we may actually have historians studying them wondering "what were they thinking?"

Ever see that DS9 episode where they went back to 2005 and Dax hooked up with a Bill Gates like character running Internet Channel 47? "Oh.. television? It didn't last much beyond the turn of the century.. people found better things to do with their time." .. it's about time!