Tivo Tries, Cancels PayPerPost Ad Strategy

Tivo tries out PayPerPost- essentially pseudo viral marketing where you pay people for creating advertising for you and getting it out on the net. Unsurprisingly, when this all came out, people complained and they killed the program and tried to pull the videos when they realized that they were looking like tools.

Comments

It's "TiVo".

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't capitalize the V.

Re:It's "TiVo".

[PlatyPaul]

I'd be more worried about the "stretegy"/strategy/strategery mixup....

Re:It's "TiVo".

[roadkill_cr]

Also it's supposed to be spelled "stretegery".

At least you tried!

[Anonymous Coward]

And Slashdot canceled spell checking apparently.

New Funding for Slashdot?

[joeme1]

Maybe Slashdot should try this. Let's see,
1. Charge per post
2. ???*
3. Profit

  (*everyone leaves because we all spend too much time on Slashdot to earn enough money to pay for our posts)

Damn ads

[Luke Dawson]

people complained and they killed the program and tried to pull the videos when they realized that they were looking like tools.

Yeah, real professional commentary there. Anyhow, why can't we just ban these frigging ads where "real" people are supposedly testifying at just how great a product is? Everything from credit counseling to floor polish seems to have them these days. Seriously, can't they come up with something more original? I don't want to see a bunch of paid actors gushing about how fantastic a product is, I want to know what it does and why I should buy it. The most amusing one I saw was for a product that helps you store your kitchen roll by hooking a container over a door. The people were like "it's changed my life", "life is so much easier now"...I mean, what the FUCK? How messed up does your life have to be that where you store your kitchen roll has a profound impact on the quality of your life!?

Re:Damn ads

[techpawn]

They're banking on the social "word of mouth" style of advertising. It's the old psychological thing of "Oh hey! Bob's using it and he's doing well. I might as well too so I can do well!" That's why they have these "real" people give testimonials about the products. So other Sheeple will follow them off the cliffs

Re:Damn ads

[maxume]

I'm concerned now, as I have no idea what a kitchen roll is, and apparently, I could be using one to change my life.

(I'll jump in here and ruin the joke myself, to beat the inevitable interlopers to it, 'kitchen roll' is apparently how some British people refer to paper towels)

Re:Damn ads

[ghostlibrary]

> why can't we just ban these frigging ads where "real" people are supposedly testifying at just how great a product is?

My fav is a Car Trade-in one... the guy talks about how he didn't have time to sell it himself or shop around, so he just went to [Company] and they gave him the best deal and less hassle than anyone else. But... if he went to them rather than shopping around, how did he know it was the best deal?

So I don't think they should ban those ads. As long as companies want to throw away money making bad ads, I'm all for it. What I don't want to see is cunningly made, effective ads that really work on me. That would suck.

Re:Damn ads

[morgan_greywolf]

I have four words for you: most people are stupid. That's why they fall for the same advertising strategy time and time again. The more intelligent among us just want to know the facts: this is what the product is, this is what it does, this is why you'd want to buy it, and here is where you can buy it and how much it costs. The rest of the slobbering idiots in the world are easily distracted by pretty, shiny objects with glowing reviews by 'real' people or even by paid celebrities. A couple of people have actually told me, for instance, that they bought a Sleep Number bead because Lindsay Wagner said how well it worked for her on TV. C'mon, folks, Lindsay Wagner is a washed up actress with no career left. She said it worked well for her on TV because they paid her lots of money to say it worked well for her on TV. Duh.

Re:Damn ads

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel this post has revolutionised my life.

It is just not something I would have been able to read anywhere else.

Luke Dawson is a visionary, one of those gems who improve life for ordinary people.

He is also good for children!

Re:Damn ads

[garcia]

On my website I have a lot of "reviews" of restaurants in my area. Many of these I write about before they even open their doors to obtain a good Google search ranking so that when they do open I can capture many of the first searchers for them. When I do visit the places (or someone else does and posts a negative comment) I get a flood of astroturfing from the owners or employees (or other interested parties) which I usually can pick out immediately by the tone and message of the e-mail (corporate-speak laced comments) or the fact that they have 6 posts with different names and e-mail addresses from the same IP.

Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers had an interested financial party posting about it near the beginning, Kami Japanese Steakhouse had several attempts at this and most recently I had several comments from the same IP with different names and fake e-mail addresses for Bucky's Soup Sandwiches and Salads.

So it's not just limited to major corporations paying people to do this kind of shit. It happens on a much smaller scale everywhere. Thankfully I am a local website operator that takes the time to moderate comments and pay attention to their games. Who knows what more professional sites have to deal with as far as astroturfing skew.

Re:Damn ads

[Anonymous Coward]

its paper towels
guess what a toilet roll is.

Re:Damn ads

[maxume]

If you aren't going to read the comments, you should go ahead and get an account.

Re:Damn ads

[CmdrGravy]

Kitchen roll is a, usually perforated, roll of absorbent paper for use in the kitchen hence the term "Kitchen Roll".

Toilet roll is a, usually perforated, roll of abosrbent paper for use in the toilet.

Paper towels are squares, or rectangles, of absorbent paper usually stacked one on top of the other.

Tissues are like paper towels but usually more lightweight, often coloured or even perfumed.

Handy Andies are small packets of tissues which can fit convieniently in a jacket pocket in place of a hankerchief.

Re:Damn ads

[the_fat_kid]

In the house I grew up in Paper towels came in a two foot long roll.
asswipe, toilet tisue, tp, whatever came in a 6 inch roll.
paper napkins came in a stack.
tissues came in a box (and let's not have any banter about what comes in a tissue)

that doesn't mean that I'm right and you're wrong, it's just what my Moma called them.

Re:Damn ads

[CmdrGravy]

Vive la difference !

In my house we didn't have a Moma, the matriarch was referred to as Mum or in northern parts as Mom. It's possible some households referred to toilet paper as arse-wipes but never asswipes and they would be presented on a 15.24cm carboard tube.

Some of my neighbours refer to a thing called a bab-ee which I assume is some sort of benefits token they can cash in for houses and drinking money, I'm not sure what the American term for that is ?

Re:Damn ads

[CmdrGravy]

Incidentally, is your toilet paper really 6inches wide ?

Re:Damn ads

[Funkcikle]

I have four words for you: most people are stupid.

That's not four words!

Re:Damn ads

[Luke Dawson]

And if you call in the next fifteen minutes, shipping is free!

Re:Damn ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Incidentally, is your toilet paper really 6inches wide ?

My guess?

He's so used to referring to a particular something tiny as being about "6 inches" that he has come to believe that that is what six inches really looks like.

Hurray for the anonymous checkbox! I rarely use it but today I'm glad it's there!

Re:Damn ads

[mooingyak]

We've got some big assholes over here. They tend to be very publicly visible and hold a wide variety of elected positions. I'm surprised you're not familiar with them.

Re:Damn ads

[mjorkerina]

You made my day.

Re:Damn ads

[the_fat_kid]

I'll thank you to leave my tiny, child like hands out of the discussion.

Re:Damn ads

[Anonymous Coward]

Paper Towels
Are those individual pieces of paper you find in usually wall mounted containers in washrooms to dry your hands with.

Kitchen roll is a different softer paper, good for soaking up many liquids and a few other uses, but generally wouldn't be much use as a towel for drying hands.

Both are paper products but with different overlapping physical properties.

why would you call something a paper towel, when it's not very towel like?

Free money!

[angryfirelord]

Show me someone who takes YouTube videos seriously and I'll show you a future George W. Bush fan.

Re:Free money!

[sprag]

I hate GWB, but any video on youtube with Yakety-Sax in the background is serious business!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cMO8Pyi3UpY

Re:Free money!

[Antique Geekmeister]

It needs the crowd of mostly naked women and a small ugly bald man, running around chasing the star, and vice versa.

But it's still surprisingly funny.

Re:Free money!

[Dr. Cody]

Stairs?

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

That didn't make any sense.

Get back to the nerds, Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I still read Slashdot because, generally, Slashdot has tended to be "news for nerds" and sites like Reddit and Digg mostly suck for that, with nonsense about "politics", funny pictures, top 10 lists, or "how to improve your blog" articles getting in the way. So Slashdot is doing it for the nerds, right? But some article about viral marketing online? This is marketing territory. Internet marketing might have seemed geeky years ago, but now it's just part of general culture.

Slashdot has done pretty well on the nerd front lately (the whole rest of the front page is pretty much on the mark), but this story (and those similar to it from time to time) makes no sense here.

Re:Get back to the nerds, Slashdot

[Overzeetop]

It's not about marketing, it's about TiVo.

Slashdotters tend to be heavy in the fanboi stuff - which is why TiVo and Apple come up so often. Note that TiVo is linux based and Apple is a computer company...mostly, so they technically fit the nerd mold, but really they're just shiny things now with only a small group of hardcore enthusiasts which are truly nerds. And before you fanboi mods take issue with those statements, let me state that I happen to be a pretty big TiVo fan - I own two, one of which is hacked for more space, and the other is hacked to provide all the things they don't want you to do.

Re:Get back to the nerds, Slashdot

[jedidiah]

Tivo is a very interesting bit of disruptive technology.

It's ability to disrupt is directly proportional to how
well Tivo Corp does the whole "being a company" thing.

To quote on TiVo executive

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wait, what do you mean there's no rewind button on life? We can't just go back a few weeks before we started this?"

lol. internet.

[Anonymous Coward]

content is as serious as the source, not the host.
Like this guy hammering out Johnny Marr Riffs on his Rickenbacker

It's money

[tepples]

C'mon, folks, Lindsay Wagner is a washed up actress with no career left. She said it worked well for her on TV because they paid her lots of money to say it worked well for her on TV. Duh. The logic here is that a company that has the money to pay an actress to promote her product is a company that also has the money to potentially handle the engineering and support correctly.

Re:It's money

[morgan_greywolf]

McDonald's has historically had the cash to pay lots of actors, big-name sports stars, etc., to promote their product. Do you think that their product is 'engineered' and 'supported correctly?'

And, no, it's not an exception -- it's the rule. Companies make lots of money because they market their product well, no matter how bad that product is. So many companies these days are marketing and sales operations. Mattel doesn't even manufacture their own toys anymore -- all of their production is outsourced to China. That's why there's lead paint in their products. It doesn't matter how good their product is or isn't -- it only matters how well they market it. If you could figure out a way to market sh** well, you'd make a gazillion dollars selling your turds.

Re:It's money

[jmyers]

"If you could figure out a way to market sh** well, you'd make a gazillion dollars selling your turds."

http://www.moodoo.com/moo_doo.htm

Woe be to TiVo

[Generic Guy]

I hate to say it, but I can't say I'm surprised. Seems that in recent years TiVO has been losing support from their most-ardent fans -- the longtime TiVo owners (like myself). Tivo has squandered a lot of the goodwill from their own community.

• There have been a lot of crazy pricing structure changes, all of which are more expensive than previously.
• Tivo now wants a minimum one-year "lock-in" similar to the cell-phone dealers. You cannot try the service for a couple of months to see if you like it.
• They ended the Lifetime Subscription option which was popular with folks who hate recurring bills.
• After a year on the market there are serious questions about the performance and reliability of their newest and most-expensive HiDef units. And its incompatible with the new SDV (Switched Digital Video) being introduced on a lot of cable systems.
• Encroachment of more and more insidious kinds of advertising on a machine already expensive to buy and maintain.
• Customer service leaves a lot wanting. For the cost, you'd think they would have better/more-knowledgable CSRs without the long wait-times.
• And most-dangerously... inexpensive, competing units direct from the Cable Companies and Satellite vendors which have moved from "outright horrible" to "moderately usable". TiVo is fighting a war of attrition.

Tivo's biggest problem seems to be losing evangelism from their (former) biggest fans. It's too expensive and the lock-in seems abusive. And without the Lifetime to fall back on, I can't really recommend it anymore. I'm not the only old-timer who feels this way.

It's no wonder they need to turn to astroturfing.

Re:Woe be to TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, there's no reason to buy a TiVo any more. Most people already pay their cable company for the only thing that TiVo actually offers, which is the TV guide.

Otherwise, you're always better off renting a DVR from the cable company. Hard drives last about three years max. TiVo costs $300 plus a monthly fee of $13/month. You can rent a DVR from the cable company for about $15/month. So TiVo is only $2/month cheaper, and that's ignoring the upfront cost. Since the TiVo box will wear out and die in three years, and you'll have to buy a new one, you're looking at a true cost of around $22/month for TiVo.

When renting a box from the cable company, you can replace it at any time at no cost.

There's no reason to buy a TiVo any more. Just rent a DVR from the cable company. It's cheaper, you don't have to worry about replacing it, and unlike the ongoing TiVo Cable Card disaster, it'll actually work.

Re:Woe be to TiVo

[Applekid]

It's no wonder they need to turn to astroturfing. As opposed to just making things better.

I guess that's why they call them "the good old days."

There's still a lot of potential in TiVo, but, unfortunately, the company as a whole has gotten kicked around pretty good by analysts and profitability and the whole bean-counter stuff. It'd be neat if a company, one that isn't hanging on by a thread, would snatch it up and really improve things. Faster boxes, huge leaps in hard drive space, un-gimped TiVo-to-Go, etc.

Not sure which came first, ReplayTV or TiVo, but TiVo certainly was the best of class for a while, with other set top boxes were merely TiVo clones. There must be some really f'ed up management out there to had let their strong brand name degenerate like that.

Re:Woe be to TiVo

[hummassa]

You forgot that the term TiVOization was coined to fit the worse Evil(TM) TiVO has been doing... ;-)

Re:Woe be to TiVo

[jayp00001]

The cable dvr is != tivo.
It's not the TV guide that is the "Tivo" stuff it's the interface to the guide info. That's the trick that makes me go back to my regular def tivo vs a hi-def box from comcast. Tivo has a lot of obvious features that the other interfaces just don't have. Otherwise I'd have already ditched my tivo. But due to the fact that they dropped lifetime subs (except from Humax machines) I'm not recommending anyone buy another one. Once you're hooked it's like crack, so those that have never had it will probably not miss it.

Re:Woe be to TiVo

[duckpoopy]

The piss-slow processors they put in these things is infuriating. Press 'guide' and it takes a full 3-seconds for anything to happen. Same for changing channels, etc.

Re:Woe be to TiVo

[Anonymous Coward]

Tivo's interface sucks.

Try this: record every Monday through Thursday on a given channel at 11PM. You can't make it do that. You have to do it manually.

You're supposed to use the Season Pass feature to do that. Problem: their TV guide info SUCKS ASS and it always mistakes repeats for new episodes and fails to record the 11PM episode instead recording the 8PM repeat and refusing to record new episodes thanks to the repeat.

I don't want a fucking season pass. I want to tell it when to record and set a repeating schedule.

Re:Woe be to TiVo

[Nexcis]

I dont get it. You can manually tell the Tivo to do that. I havent had any problems with season passes at all. Ive had mine for a good 4 months now.

MAN!

[certain death]

Who really cares about TiVo? I switched from them to the DirectTV DVR (HD) and never looked back. Sure, I miss some of the functionality, but then I don't miss them deleting shows I recorded because they have "Timed Out". TiVo can suck it.

Re:MAN!

[theoneandonlyed]

"Because they have timed out"? Do you mean, because you're too lazy to manage your hard drive space and set "Keep until..." and/or look in the "Deleted Items" folder, and you tend to ignore the large easy-to-read icons that are placed there to let you know that a show might be deleted to make room for something else? Or are you talking about the maybe 5 shows in all the history of television that have actually had a copy-protection time-out set, in which case you're blaming TiVo for something that is being done by the networks/copyright holders, if at all? If you need to complain about Tivo to help you feel good about your DirecTV DVR, you're going to have to do better than that. And please, don't tell me that DirecTV is going have a sudden epiphany and "stick it to da man" on DRM.

Re:MAN!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't miss them deleting shows I recorded because they have "Timed Out".

I think I've seen this happen once, and the DirecTV DVRs do it too in the same situation (where the expiration is set by the copyright holder. it almost never occurs.)

As such, I'm 100% sure that you're either lying about having ever had a TiVo, or you're a total fucking retard. No idea which is more likely, but those are the only available options.

Re:MAN!

[humankind]

You honestly think DirecTV DVR is better than Tivo? Or are you a paid viral marketer for DirecTV?

Re:MAN!

[certain death]

I honestly think it is better. I had all kinds of problems with TiVo, it would freeze up, there was a very bad delay between when I pushed a remote button, and when it actually received and processed the command, sometimes up to 30 seconds. Tuners went out in it within 10-12 days of purchase, and on, and on! I don't work for DirecTV or anyone even remotely in that industry, but I know what I like, and that is a product that works as advertised.

Re:MAN!

[certain death]

You know....You don't even know me so how about you gofuckyourself?

Tool video?

[zolf13]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiV_ue-PbL4

stupid covert ads

[britneys 9th husband]

I hate it when companies like Tivo do dishonest things like paying people to write crappy covert ads for them. At least when I get stressed out like this, I can calm down by smoking Laramies or Laramie Extra-Tars. The clean refreshing taste of Laramie. Start smoking them today, or you'll live to regret it!

Re:stupid covert ads

[Dogtanian]

Start smoking them today, or you'll live to regret it! Are you implying that Laramie smokers won't regret their decision, or just that they won't live long enough to regret it? ;-)

Stretegy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this a Web 2.0 thing?

ReplayTV was better

[edawstwin]

I disagree that "TiVo certainly was the best of class for a while". TiVo was the most popular, but ReplayTV had a much better interface and automatically skipped commercials if you wanted it to. I had a 1st generation TiVo, but ditched it as soon as I saw my friend's ReplayTV. It wasn't even close who was better at the time.

Re:ReplayTV was better

[WhaThe]

Agreed. TiVo had that magic branding. I couldn't even mention my Replay most of the time without saying "it's like a TiVo". Also worth noting is the fact that it records in MPEG2 and had a NIC for easy transfer to my PC. For the record mine is still running strong, I had a very rare lockup on it a few weeks ago and started to panic wondering what I would do without it.

TiVo has finally awakened.

[RipTides9x]

Well just going by your list of bullet points it seems TiVo finally woke up and joined the rest of the corporate world. Same shit, different company.

TiVo Jumped the Shark?

[StCredZero]

Does this mean they've Jumped the Shark? Are they doomed now?

For years I have know how Slimy TIVO is

[ScrewTivo]

Hence my screen name. They royally screwed an avid fan at version 1! ME!

I've been rooting for them to go down in flames ever since.

Love my 3 yr old HD-PVR from Brighthouse!

Tools ...

[STrinity]

...made from high grade steel with ergonomic rubber grips. I use them all the time and they're great. Can be found at your local Home Depot.

(Where's my money?)