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TiVo PC Could Be a Game-Changer

Posted by kdawson on from the and-you-thought-google-had-the-goods-on-you dept.

An anonymous reader sends in an article by Andrew Keen (author of "The Cult of the Amateur") about TiVo's new TiVo PC, which he believes could seal the fate of advertising on online videos. Just as TiVo let viewers zap commercials on broadcast TV, TiVo PC — a TV tuner that can be plugged into a PC — will let Net viewers of the likes of Hulu.com and ABC.com skip commercials in the nascent medium of online video. Keen believes that TiVo's business model involves (besides selling lots of $199 boxes) mining and selling the far richer stream of user behavioral data that TiVo PC will enable.

15 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Wait a second by Orleron · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If they mine data for behavior statistics, and they kill advertising.... what will they use the behavioral statistics for?
    *scratches head*

    1. Re:Wait a second by eln · · Score: 5, Funny

      If they mine data for behavior statistics, and they kill advertising.... what will they use the behavioral statistics for?

      Online dating. Everyone always assumed TiVo wanted to collect all this data for marketing purposes, but actually they're just really, really lonely.

    2. Re:Wait a second by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Funny

      or the Geico duck ads

      Somewhere in the world, at two difference advertising agencies, two overpaid campaign managers are explaining to their bosses how ads for car insurance and for supplementary health insurance could have been confused like that.

      Thank you.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    3. Re:Wait a second by Chyeld · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's true I don't want ads shoved in my face, but on the other side of the coin, I often visit the Apple trailers site and watch odd or funny ads on YouTube and their ilk.

      It's not the ads that I mind as much as their presentation. The last time I visited my folks we watched a PAY PER VIEW movie on dish. Every 5-10 minutes the show was interupted for the same effing, stupid, Bounty commerical.

      It made me want to go home and research Bounty and it's parent companies simply to ensure I never bought anything of theirs again.

    4. Re:Wait a second by rs79 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      She claims to like ads because they keep her "informed"

      They do. When you stop seeing ads for luxury goods, it means something. Ads are a reflection of the culture at the moment.

      I don't like them and even wish they'd go away but I can understand how poeple
      would be interested in reading them. I do enjoy reading ads from, say 100 years
      ago; some peoples thresholds are different - they like newer ads too for some
      definition of newer.

      --
      Need Mercedes parts ?
  2. This isn't sustainable by bendodge · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Game changer? More like a game-trasher. I purposely do not block text or image ads (only flash) on websites because I know why they are there. Ads exist in video and websites to fund the content. If everyone blocks ads in video sites, the video sites will simply go away. TiVo does not have a sustainable business model here.

    --
    The government can't save you.
    1. Re:This isn't sustainable by Hatta · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The existence of adblock hasn't caused the collapse of the web yet. If anything, giving the viewer power to view or not will encourage advertisers to make ads people want to see. I can only see this as an improvement.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:This isn't sustainable by WamBam · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I like Hulu enough to sit through 30 seconds of advertising which I think is a fair trade for the programming they offer. I just can't think of a reason why I should spend $199 for a device that will eliminate 2 minutes of commercials.

      TIVO was a great replacement for a VCR and no doubt had a hand in pushing 'on demand' content on to the web as well as through our cable boxes, game systems and so forth. But now that they created a market that they no longer have exclusivity over, it seems that this new device is some sort of half-assed effort to get back into the game.

    3. Re:This isn't sustainable by Babbster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I like Hulu enough to sit through 30 seconds of advertising which I think is a fair trade for the programming they offer.

      Seriously. How commercial-intolerant would one have to be in order to get annoyed with Hulu's commercials? If network TV had that level of advertising, I'd never skip a comercial again, even with convenient 15/30-second skip buttons. I'll go further, in fact. For a 40- to 50-minute program, I'll take a full five minutes of commercials, perhaps one minute for every ten minutes of content. Sponsors willing to participate in that could expect me to give them significant consideration when I'm making purchasing decisions.

  3. No answers. by Aladrin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    TFA asks a lot of questions but provides no answers whatsoever.

    Personally, I doubt Hulu is going to let Tivo access their service and then skip the commercials unless Tivo is paying them every time a user does that. It would be suicide for Hulu.

    ABC, NBC, etc etc are all in the same boat, except that it's not suicide and merely stupid for them.

    I also doubt that user viewing preferences matters at all in an environment that can skip commercials. Unless they are looking for the demographic that won't watch the commercials no matter what... I can't imagine what use that data is.

    --
    "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  4. wtf? by JustinOpinion · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This article seems nonsensical to me.

    a TV tuner that can be plugged into a PC -- will let Net viewers of the likes of Hulu.com and ABC.com skip commercials in the nascent medium of online video.

    What? Why do I need a TiVo TV Tuner box to watch online videos? Stripping commercials from online streaming video sounds like a software task. And saving the streaming video so that you can jump past the commercials doesn't require any special TiVo magic (whether hardware, subscription, or software). Will we see software and utilities that allow you to skip ads on online video? Probably. But what does this have to do with a TV-Tuner card for your PC?

    The article also asks some nonsensical questions:

    Does the arrival of the TiVo PC set-top box represent the final convergence of television and Internet video?

    No. TV-Tuner cards and online video have existed for awhile. I don't see how a TiVo box changes anything. Yes, it might make "TV on your computer" more accessible to the masses... but that isn't a "final convergence" of anything, really. Sure, the lines are blurring between TV and Internet. And TiVo is part of that inevitable change. But this box isn't a revolution.

    What will be the impact of TiVo's new device on the online video economy?

    None. It's a TV-Tuner card, isn't it? (People watch Hulu because they don't want to pay for the equivalent cable channels.)

    Will TiVo be remembered as the company that helped slaughter the advertising golden goose that has enriched the broadcasting industry for the last 50 years?

    Doubtful. TiVo hasn't demolished TV ads yet. Strangely, PVRs in general haven't either. And AdBlock hasn't demolished web ads. These are all part of the arms race which keep ads sufficiently non-annoying that a sizeable fraction of the population doesn't bother avoiding. There will always be people who avoid them. But most people don't bother.

    Add to this the fact that part of TiVo's strategy is to deliver ads to customers somehow... I hardly think that this new box changes much for the ad industry.

  5. Author an Idiot! by jdc180 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Tivo Software for the PC is simply a reproduction of the Tivo software in the tivo boxes that works on your Windows PC. It's not going to allow you to skip or record online videos, it will allow you to skip and record TV.

  6. Keen Seems to Misunderstand Tivo PC by OG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He seems to believe that Tivo PC is a method of accessing online content, but it's not. If you have a TV tuner card in your PC, it lets you use the Tivo software with that card. That's all.

    There's nothing you can do with this new product that you can't already do with MythTV or similar products. People who are going to save programs, edit out commercials, and post the final product up on the web are already doing it. This won't facilitate such behavior.

    Keen doesn't seem to have a clue as to what this product actually does.

  7. Troll alert by CSMatt · · Score: 4, Informative

    For those unaware of who this is, this is the guy who compared user-generated content to communism.

    I'm not kidding.

    1. Re:Troll alert by BruceCage · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ah yes, the guy who wrote the book titled "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture" or the full subtitle of "How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today's user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values".

      Some more great quotes from Andrew Keen in an interview with Paula Newton on CNN.

      "I think we've got to learn to read and listen to professionals rather than ourselves, because ultimately they're the ones who are experts, they're the ones who know how to collect the news, they're the ones who know how to make great music and compelling movies not ourselves. "

      "The beauty of mainstream media is that you have editors, you have gatekeepers, who are relatively objective, who are professional, who ensure that the majority of the news is unbiased."

      Perhaps one of these days I'll actually read into this guy some more under the guise of "Know Thy Enemy", but at the moment I have better things to do with my time.

      He's also given a talk at Google by the way.

      --
      Perfect is the enemy of done.