TiVo Will Die 402
Espectr0 writes "Yahoo! News has a PC Magazine-reprinted story about why they think the TiVo will die because of rising competition. From the article: 'It's always hard to write an obituary, especially when the subject is still alive. It's especially hard for me, because I love the little guy like a brother. But, alas, TiVo will die. I was one of the first reviewers to get my hands on an early TiVo box. I compared TiVo with ReplayTV, and although I really wanted to like ReplayTV, TiVo won my heart over.'"
Oh well..... (Score:5, Funny)
squirt? (Score:1, Funny)
the fat digital bits from the satellite go right onto the hard drive and aren't converted to analog until they squirt into your TV.
now THAT's some realistic pr0n.
Trend... (Score:5, Funny)
To paraphrase... (Score:2, Funny)
no way! (Score:3, Funny)
oh crap...
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More death in the news (Score:5, Funny)
Researchers believe Sun will die in 5 billion years [enchantedlearning.com]
Super Bowl (Score:2, Funny)
I guess the reference is to Janet's Breast
Death Race 2004 (Score:5, Funny)
Who will die first?
Or will Duke Nukem Forever release before any of them die?
Netcraft confirms: TiVo is Dying (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly, they should've just written the article this way:
It is official; Netcraft confirms: TiVo is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered TiVo community when IDC confirmed that TiVo market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent TiVocraft survey which plainly states that TiVo has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. TiVo is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent television viewer comprehensive recording test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict TiVo's future. The hand writing is on the wall: TiVo faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for TiVo because TiVo is dying. Things are looking very bad for TiVo. As many of us are already aware, TiVo continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeTiVo is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeTiVo developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeTiVo is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenTiVo leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenTiVo. How many users of NetTiVo are there? Let's see. The number of OpenTiVo versus NetTiVo posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetTiVo users. TiVo posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetTiVo posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/PVR. A recent article put FreeTiVo at about 80 percent of the TiVo market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeTiVo users. This is consistent with the number of FreeTiVo Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of TiVo, abysmal sales and so on, FreeTiVo went out of business and was taken over by TiVo who sell another troubled PVR. Now TiVo is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that TiVo has steadily declined in market share. TiVo is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If TiVo is to survive at all it will be among PVR dilettante dbblers. TiVo continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, TiVo is dead.
Fact: TiVo is dying
Is everything dying today? (Score:5, Funny)
AOL is dying [slashdot.org]
Apple is dying [slashdot.org]
Civilization on Mars is dying [slashdot.org]
Shouldn't this story be in the *BSD section?
Oooh! Add it to the list (Score:5, Funny)
Which will pull through? Which won't? Who's going to be next? Place your bets!
Seriously, though, I think that licensing to DirecTV et al will help out TiVo in a pretty substantial way.
Why you should always read the article first (Score:5, Funny)
Shaped like a dog bone, it was simple to use, easy to understand, and a pleasure to hold.
If you didn't read the article, you may not know what the author means when another poster quotes the article! :)
Re:Too expensive... (Score:2, Funny)
"It's not torture. It's entertainment.
Re:Too expensive... (Score:1, Funny)
That's a serious amount of MacGyver. Perhaps even a lethal dose.
Don't you, like, need a government permit or something to store hazardous waste?
Re:Trend... (Score:2, Funny)
Tell me. Is there something written on my forehead that says "beleaguered"?
Re:Oooh! Add it to the list (Score:4, Funny)
It deserves to die for crimes to humanity. (Score:4, Funny)
YES, Tivo is dead.
My prescient mind, armed with my incredible understanding of market economics (from my hours in high school econ, and the occasional Wall Street Journal articles) predicts the downfall of this device... and here's why:
It works too well, has real value, and makes watching television easy in a glut of channels, all the while searching for programs you like.
That just sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Nobody ever became rich giving the public what they wanted... people became rich selling patches, add-ons, and ancillary crap to something that hardly worked, suckering in the customer with the hope that THIS WAS THE THING THAT WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO WORK WELL THIS TIME.
Tivo needs to get Ron Popeil on the phone, and let him break it down for them.
See? Get with the new economics! You don't make millions anymore giving the customers what they want! You have to release a crappy, non-transparent technology and then CHARGE THEM FOR UPDATES! Please. You need to think like Gates to survive these days. The money is not in giving them what they want. The money is in giving them something that doesn't work that they think will work, and then charging them huge bucks to GET IT TO WORK RIGHT AFTER ten generations later.
Tivo should die for getting it right the first time. This is America people. Our economy would collapse if we produced products that actually worked, where would all of the tech support workers be? All of the patch engineers? More importantly, where are all the freaking extra charges that make you a Fortune 500 company when you innovate and give the public what they want in a good product?
Face it. It is just like health care. The money ain't in the cure, the money is in the medicine.
Tivo screwed up. They deserve to die for NOT screwing their customers.
Re:Too expensive... (Score:1, Funny)
Mod parent up! (Score:5, Funny)
It isn't even limited to electronic media. Dead tree versions used to publish the same crap. Check the newspapers and magazines in the supermarket check-out line. Many of those don't even limit themselves to some insignificant item, either. They'll edit the photos to make them fit the story.
It's all about generating chatter. Whether on-line or at the water cooler.
But now, on-line means page hits which equates to popularity / ratings which means advertising dollars.
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too expensive... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I can see that being a problem IF YOU HAVE A PET APE THAT REGULARLY THROWS YOUR TIVO AROUND THE ROOM.
For the rest of us, I can't think of ANY consumer electronics device I have ever had to repair more than ONCE.
bUNK (Score:3, Funny)
The year 2004 will be THE year for HDTV! Hahahaaha. Great premise. Do you work part time at Best Buy?
My favorite is that the final 'nail' in Tivo's coffin will be when ESPN starts airing some sportcrap in HDTV. Oh no, the end!
Not exactly a glowing recomendation... (Score:3, Funny)
Give a TiVo to your friends for a month and you'll have to pry the remote out of their cold, dead hands.
Umm... thanks buddy, but if it has that effect on people, you can keep it!
Shootin' Fish in a Barrel (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oh well..... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Too expensive... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh well..... (Score:2, Funny)
That's when my new invention will hit.....the UN-DIGIFIER! It's basically an inside-out camcorder that will come packaged with a hard-copy of the US Constitution and copies of the relavent fair-use laws in your state. A multi-megapixel LCD an inch downstream of a state-of-the-art CCD in a sealed black box with DVI out. Dump the result to MPEG7 format and fast forward/copy/whatever to your heart's content.
Of course, by then the shows will suck so bad you won't want to keep them anyway. As evidence, we're talking about Max Headroom in 2004.......