Skip to main content

A Theory of TiVolution, Darwinian moves in the kingdom of DVR

TiVo, the DVR box that evolved the VCR into the first form of a timeshifting product has been building out a network of content partners in an effort to diversify it's offering beyond TV.

Why? The Techdirt Insight Community has already been asked this year on Video Store 2.0 and the potential impacts of IPTV on the regular broadcasting providers. The reality is that TV scheduling and broadcasting is under disruption and niche vendors like TiVo need to soften the impact.

I'm glad to see that they're moving in the right direction with new partnership announcements in the content and importantly user/community generated content spaces. It's been a slow and steady approach to becoming a true media company.

Announced this week are partnerships with Music Choice giving TivoCast subscribers access to a store of music videos. Combines this with the rollout of the previously integration with Rhapsody and you get a learning device that can help you comb that music video store to match your taste. It's all about control.

In a further extension of their content sharing, Family Private Network, which initially saw a YouTube like service partnerships with Google's Picasa and Photobucket give you the ability to share your photo's with your community. This moves TiVo into an enabler of one dimension of Social Networking.

This week also saw tighter integration with Amazon's Unbox service. This deal has been in the making since February. This moves the dependency on the schedule to an alternative portal for buying your favorite show or film. On the back of the Kindle release this relationship also strengthens Amazon's role as a multi media content provider.

There has been lot's of comment generated from the ad service in lieu of fast forwarding through the broadcast version. The move into less TV dependent content should reduce the need, let's hope.

The other realization from TiVo, something Telco's could learn, is the intangible asset they have in the form of their user base. They have entered a deal with NBC to provide viewing statistics, so maybe their data is becoming useful to someone.

There are some features that I'd still like to see on the DVR box. On board WiFi, get rid of the USB dongle and further elevate this former DVR into the domain of multi media centers

Promising developments to show that some players are starting to get it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

PC over IP - The Teradici Effect

Teradici are hoping to blur the lines between PC and Data Centre. Their solution allows a use to view multiple screens and control the blade PC over IP. This is kind of like the dumb terminals with a new edgy deployment. The intention is that all of the computing power is performed offsite in a centralized area, the Data Centre, and this will save on power and maintenance costs as the engineers are co-located with the hardware and therefore don't have to go out to the client site for basic maintenance. The Teradici Company Article found in the Wall Street Journal

In the overlap of technology, marketing and social media the QR Code is critical

Outside of consulting on telecommunications, CIO advisory, and the business adoption of technology I also completed an MBA.  One of the projects was on the potential use cases of two dimensional barcodes. Today the QR Code , one of many types of 2D codes, is seen as being a critical component of any good marketing plan.  As a natural integration between social media and devices I would extend VMob Bob's question " What can a mobile operator learn from Facebook ?" and also ask how can they step and start to make innovations with the extensions to social media that already exist today?

e-Olympics

This year's Olympics should be the best ever for coverage. Fring are looking for onsite commentators and as a means to encourage people are offering a 3.5G phone as your reporters tool. I hope that this will be the games of the micro blog. The potential for services like Twitter or Jaiku to open up access to the games in a way never seen before is encouraging. Essentially there are three dimensions to the games: Nation Event Athlete Typically broadcast of the games ha content defined by the nation. The USA channels closely follow the USA squad, the same for UK, NZ Australia etc. This is targeted at the national pride. For those people who are actively engaged in an event themselves, marathon, it's the event that is king. There will still be an element of "my country" but this is equally balanced by "my sport". The final element is the followers of a specific athlete. Friends, family and fans may elect to follow all of the events surrounding a person. ...