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Television Media The Internet

TiVo PC Could Be a Game-Changer 191

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.
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TiVo PC Could Be a Game-Changer

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  • Wait a second (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Orleron ( 835910 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:16PM (#25289697) Homepage
    If they mine data for behavior statistics, and they kill advertising.... what will they use the behavioral statistics for?
    *scratches head*
    • by eln ( 21727 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:21PM (#25289763)

      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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        Heh, it dosen't take marketing statistics to show that


        PEOPLE DON'T WANT ADS SHOVED IN THEIR FACES!
        • Re:Wait a second (Score:4, Interesting)

          by An ominous Cow art ( 320322 ) * on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:57PM (#25290313) Journal

          It's sad, but some do. A co-worker uses IE, and her home page is MSN.com. It makes me physically ill to watch her start up her browser. I always make a big (semi-joking) deal about averting my eyes. She claims to like ads because they keep her "informed". Sigh...

          • Re:Wait a second (Score:5, Insightful)

            by rs79 ( 71822 ) <hostmaster@open-rsc.org> on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @03:49PM (#25290985) Homepage

            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.

        • Re:Wait a second (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Chyeld ( 713439 ) <chyeld.gmail@com> on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @03:45PM (#25290929)

          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.

          • Movie trailers for a long time have been advertisements that people have sought out. Make your advertisement a narrative, or some other entertainment, and people will actively seek it out - especially if, like trailers, they require a minimal time investment. Then, if the 'trailer' is interesting enough, they might go after the actual product.

            Games with demos are in this category as well - and successfully, I might add.

          • Re:Wait a second (Score:4, Interesting)

            by lysergic.acid ( 845423 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @08:25PM (#25294123) Homepage

            consumerism really has changed our society (for the worse IMO). economics has always been an essential, though not the dominant, component of anthropological studies. when we study the ancient greeks, romans, egyptians, etc. we learn about their culture through art, cultural literature, historic records, etc. and we learn about their lifestyle mostly through artifacts like pottery, statues, wall carvings, etc. but if future anthropologists want to learn about our society, they'll mostly just find advertisements. unless future archaeologists happen to come across the MOCA or Getty, the only culture they're going to find will have been produced by marketing/advertising agencies.

            and this isn't just an issue of how we're going to look to future civilizations who are studying us. if most of the "culture" individuals are exposed to are advertisements and marketing campaigns to encourage consumption, then that's surely going to have a detrimental effect on our society. we're living in an age of advertising as culture. even the tv shows or films we watch for entertainment are filled with product placement. there's no longer such a thing as pure culture that wasn't created to manipulate people into buying a product.

        • PEOPLE DON'T WANT ADS SHOVED IN THEIR FACES!

          While I agree with the sentiment, the fact is that TV is a "free" medium once you buy the set. You can use over the air signals. Paying for cable just gets you more channels.

          I don't like commercials, but I wouldn't mind being interrupted every once in a while to see a commercial or two during a show that I get for free. The writers do a good job of making the break sensible. I am willing to pay for the entertainment with my time as long as it is reasonable
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Enry ( 630 )

      Product placement, advertising in other media (print, radio, internet), and more targeted advertising.

    • Re:Wait a second (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mcgrew ( 92797 ) * on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:36PM (#25289993) Homepage Journal

      It won't kill advertising. My snailmailbox continually gets ads, some people look. It just means that advertisers are going to have to be less banal and annoying and more entertaining in their own right.

      Nobody minds the Budweiser frog ads, or the Geico duck ads. hell, when one of those Budweiser ads comes on I'll wait until that ad is over before I go to get another Killian. The people making that "head on" commercials are in deep trouble with this, though.

      • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @03:00PM (#25290353)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        The people making that "head on" commercials are in deep trouble with this, though.

        But you remembered the "head on" ad so it worked. :)

        • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *
          I didn't buy the product so it didn't.
      • hell, when one of those Budweiser ads comes on I'll wait until that ad is over before I go to get another Killian.

        Good to see that the Budweiser ads are working you...
      • by olyar ( 591892 )

        This struck me as funny because Killians is made by Coors [wikipedia.org]

        Not sure if you intended the irony or not.

        My impression was that you were implying that the advertising from the big guys doesn't affect you because you just go get your "non-big guy" beer.

        • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

          Not sure if you intended the irony or not.

          You're the second one that mentioned that, I thought it was obvious. Actually I usually drink Busch, but if I'd said "Busch" the irony wouldn't have been there. I do actually prefer Killian but I can't afford to drink much of it; it costs about twice as much as Busch. Linda (my new tenant/roommate) drinks that nasty Steel Reserve lager, which is about half as expensive as Bush but I just can't stomach it.

    • by sorak ( 246725 )

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

      *scratches head*

      To determine which address to send the DMCA threats to...

  • by bendodge ( 998616 ) <bendodge@bsgproY ... s.com minus poet> on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:19PM (#25289729) Homepage Journal

    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.

    • by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:24PM (#25289815) Journal

      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.

    • by WamBam ( 1275048 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:26PM (#25289843)

      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.

      • by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb&gmail,com> on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:45PM (#25290139) Homepage

        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.

        • absolutely.

          The big question is, when is hulu coming out with an iPhone application?

        • Hulu is one thing because its a free service, but I don't see why I should be willing to sit through any TV commercials when I pay out the ass for cable.

        • There is no way this will work on Hulu. Hulu notices you are using Ad-Block and locks you out. If TiVo can figure it out, why isn't there a Firefox extension that does it?
          • It locks you out even if you download the content still? (And just don't view it?)

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by HTH NE1 ( 675604 )

          How commercial-intolerant would one have to be in order to get annoyed with Hulu's commercials?

          How much variety is there in Hulu's commercials? Will I see a repeated commercial in one hour of viewing? In three hours?

          And will I see commercials I haven't been exposed to dozens of times in the last week on regular television?

          Do they advertise Hulu on Hulu?

        • I haven't actually used Hulu or any of the other sites to watch a full length program (I have on a few rare occasions caught a bit that was clipped off due to a show being delayed slightly or if I didn't pad a show enough).. but if I used Hulu regularly, I probably *would* record it to my non-Tivo hard drive recorder so I could skip the ads. If Hulu only has a commercial at the beginning, I wouldn't, but I presume it has commercials in the middle, just like other sites.

          If I could get Jeopardy online, I wo

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        At 50 bucks an hour, you'd have to eliminate almost 4 hours of commercials to come out ahead in terms of opportunity cost for your time. 240 minutes of commercials.

        If the device eliminates 2 minutes of commercials, it would have to do that just 120 times to pay for itself. Why would you NOT buy the TiVo device.

        • by nasor ( 690345 )
          Are you planning to bill someone for the time that you would have spent watching the commercials?
      • by Kintanon ( 65528 )

        Same here, when I watch shows on the CBS or NBC websites they generally have 4-5 thirty second commercials. Usually for the same product every time. It's certainly not worth 200$ for me to avoid having to watch that. I can't imagine anyone for whom that would be a reasonable purchase unless you just venomously hate advertising for some philosophical reason.

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        Put me in the category of people who don't want to sit through
        the commercials AND don't want to be restricted to viewing
        content on a desktop PC. Seeing stuff on Hulu tends to inspire
        me to buy the relevant DVDs.

        TV on DVD can be dirt cheap. Transcode it to h264 and it makes
        great fodder for a virtual jukebox.

    • 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.

      They sell hardware for 200 a pop. Sounds pretty sustainable to me.

      If professional movie makers go away, there will be no reason to maintain an arbitrarily crippled set of tools to sel
      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        They sell hardware for 200 a pop. Sounds pretty sustainable to me.

        They sell a hardware software bundle that is not unlike what
        Hauppauge was doing with it's Brooktree based cards 10 years
        ago. This is nothing to get excited about. It's the same thing
        that everyone else is already doing.

        Put a random USB ATSC tuner in a bag with SageTV or VistaMCE
        and you've got the same thing as this bundle.

        What Tivo is selling is not a complete solution. It's just
        something to install in a "desktop PC". It's not even clear
        that it would work well in a slim frontend configuration
        (like MythTV on

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by mattack2 ( 1165421 )

          1) because you get the Tivo interface
          2) reviews have said that you can transfer the recordings to other Tivos, so it integrates just like any other standalone Tivo.

    • If everyone blocks ads in video sites, the video sites will simply go away.

      I don't agree with your conclusion. Advertising certainly isn't the only method to provide funding to sustain an activity. I can only say that I'd be quite contend with having the traditional and certainly the most visible and annoying method of advertising, that of commercial interruptions, disappear. Oh and don't forget about web banners and sorts.

      Even though one could argue that commercials are perhaps one of the more "honest" for

  • No answers. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aladrin ( 926209 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:21PM (#25289757)

    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.

    • by LMacG ( 118321 )

      As I understood TFA, he's just saying that being able to record shows on your PC with TiVo's device will eliminate the need for people to watch those shows via Hulu. Other than that, it was mostly blah blah blah TiVo blah blah.

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        As I understood TFA, he's just saying that being able to record shows on your PC with TiVo's device will eliminate the need for people to watch those shows via Hulu. Other than that, it was mostly blah blah blah TiVo blah blah.

        Yeah... but you can already do that with real Tivo and that's
        a "complete" solution. You can also do this with a cableco
        provided PVR. You can also do this with the various Linux,
        Mac or Windows PVR software options.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by speroni ( 1258316 )

      I doubt Hulu is going to have a say in the matter. I imagine a system where you set TiVo to record the video from your PC instead of from your cable box, then allows you to fast forward at your leisure.

      Something where the output is recorded not so much downloaded onto the tivo.

    • by Chyeld ( 713439 )

      This is a FUD article from someone with a vested interest against TiVo and who either has not a clue what he's talking about or is intentionally confusing two things.

      This is a PC based DVR, not a DVR for online video. You aren't going to be recording Hulu off this, just your standard TV.

  • Why? (Score:4, Informative)

    by neokushan ( 932374 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:25PM (#25289833)

    TV tuners are by no means anything new, the only difference this really has is that it has the TiVo name. I dare say that most people who want to plug a tuner into their PC already know this and can probably install software that does everything this does, except for free.
    I can't see it changing anything, as far as I'm aware, there isn't a teribly big market for TV tuners (there's a market all right, but it's nowhere near as big as say graphics cards or even sound cards, I'd bet - most people simply don't like being hunched over their monitor to watch TV and those that want to watch it on their actual TV would be better off with a standard TiVo box, or similar, anyway).

    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mongoose(!no) ( 719125 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:59PM (#25290333)

      You're missing the power of the brand. I've got a TV tuner in my PC, and when I record things, the best way to explain it to people is "like a TiVo, but on my computer". It's not terribly simple, especially on a college campus where the TV lineup isn't as straight forward as entering your cable company and zip code.

      If TiVo makes the TV tuner work really well, I imagine they could capture a good bit of the market. I imagine people could care less who makes their graphics card, but if they see "TiVo, but for my PC", it might make them think about getting one.

      • I suppose so, it's hard to gauge the importance of the brand because I'm from the UK and TiVo doesn't really have a significant market here that I'm aware of (Our Cable/Satellite TV companies supply their own boxes that do the same sort of thing).

        • That's funny, because the UK is the second country in which Tivos were released. I think they may have left the market after a few years, I'm not sure.

          • I couldn't honestly say if it's taken off in the UK much at all, all I know is that I've yet to see a TiVo box in any of the big electronics stores we have and I don't know a single person that owns one, but I know plenty of people with Sky (Pretty much the ONLY people who do satellite TV in the UK) and Virgin (Pretty much the ONLY people who do Cable TV in the UK) boxes that have recording functionality built in (they're both highly original names, too - Sky has their "Sky+" boxes and Virgin has a "V+" box

      • by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
        The Tivo interface is nice (and that's basically ALL you're buying here, since Pd-based DVR's like BeyondTV and MythTV have been around for years). But so much on a PC-based DVR is dependent on the right hardware and configuration. You can't just used any old videocard if you want good results, for example. Most videocards don't even have the kinds of inputs and outputs you need for this sort of thing, and almost none of them do hardware video encoding (the way the Hauppauge cards do). So you can't just sla
    • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      I am always fascinated by this sort of rhetoric.

      My computer monitor is bigger than my first TV and has been for a long time.

      If you're willing to watch Hulu then watching a PVR recording on the same machine shouldn't be such a big deal.

      • My computer monitor is my 42" Plasma TV... sounds like a perfect option to me (though I already have a setup that works for me, so why would I need Tivo's solution?)
      • But do you sit back on your couch to watch your computer screen, and control your TV from across the room with a remote?

        Sure, you *can*, but I don't think most people do. Why has the Roku gotten a lot of press? Because it's a relatively cheap way of watching stuff "that you had to previously watch on the computer" on a TV set.

  • wtf? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JustinOpinion ( 1246824 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:35PM (#25289975)
    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.

    • Agreed. This guy doesn't understand the difference between using a TV tuner card and watching online videos via a website. By not understanding this distinction, his entire article and all the arguments it makes are nonsensical.
      • by LMacG ( 118321 )

        He's barely coherent, but I think what he's saying is that if Joe Consumer, who currently watches shows via Hulu or nbc.com, will stop doing that and start using his brand new Tivo device.

        Totally agree that it's all nonsense though. He's apparently pissed that nobody from TiVo called him back.

      • For once, D(on't)RTFA. Really. If you thought the summary was confusing TFA will make it even worse.

        About the only facts in it are: TiVo is releasing a computer peripheral. The peripheral will cost $199. The peripheral uses TiVo's subscription service. Continuing the subscription will cost $99 annually.

    • People watch Hulu because they don't want to pay for the equivalent cable channels

      Actually, I'm just the opposite. The content that's on cable channels I can watch pretty easily, although sometimes I'll re-watch it on Hulu. I get my normal channel content through Hulu, because I don't have the time or the energy to keep track of when the next episode of something's going to show. I'll just take the one week wait and watch it on Hulu later.

  • It will be easy for Hulu and other sites to block this TiVo from skipping commercials. If it comes down to it they can switch to their own proprietary streaming software, though hopefully it won't become a DRM mess.

    What I'd like to see if for commercials to be optional. Say that NBC takes in 25 cents from advertisers when a viewer watches a 30 minute show. Give the user an option to create an account, enter a credit card, and turn commercials off. Every show watched would be added to the account, with the c

    • Great idea. I'd sign up for that in an instant, as long as they stop the #$%^ing blatant 'product placement' as well, as in the most recent Simpsons episode.

      • What product placement? I'm serious, I must have forgotten it.

        I *hate* regular ads(*), but most product placement really doesn't bother me. I'd vote for _more_ product placement, if it actually lowered the amount of ads I had to 30 second skip past.

        (*) Except seeing new Jack in the Box ads, once, as well as a few other types of funny commercials.. once.. then I skip them too.

        • I hate to help them out by saying what the product was, but... it was 'Pop Tarts' in Sunday night's episode. By a funny coincidence I happened to be eating some right at the moment it happened.

  • by Hoplite3 ( 671379 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:39PM (#25290027)

    No no no, no one needs to zap hulu commercials. I mean it'd be nice, but not $199 nice. Current hulu advertising breaks are quite short an bearable.

    What tivo COULD do is provide a couch-based way of using hulu, with an alternate UI that's remote control friendly. Make it work for youtube, and it'd be a good back-up plan at parties, where guests could show "teh internet funnah" to others around on the TV with minimal fuss.

    But xbox 360 and that other netflix movie watcher box are going in this direction too. Market is going to be crowded. That's good for me!

    • by Sj0 ( 472011 )

      I was at a party a while ago where the host used his Wii browser to show some cool youtube videos. Sounds like a good idea to me, and a much better use of 199 dollars.

      • I was at a party a while ago where the host used his Wii browser to show some cool youtube videos. Sounds like a good idea to me, and a much better use of 199 dollars.

        An even better use of $199: Buy some friends who don't think "dicking around on the net with a Wii" is how you have a party. ;)

        • by Sj0 ( 472011 )

          Speak for yourself. Drinking beer and watching some WFC videos is a good time for most men.

          • WFC is definitely a matter of taste, but
            "A good time" != "A party"

            Shit, I'm a neckbeard unix geek, but even I know that sitting around sucking on a beer and staring passively at a screen isn't a party. You need to be SOCIAL.

            • by Sj0 ( 472011 )

              Perhaps it's because you're a neckbeard unix geek that you've never been in a situation where watching a video is an active, social situation.

    • by Reivec ( 607341 )

      I already do this. I simply have a media PC and use the logitech DiNovo keyboard to load hulu on my TV over HDMI. Looks great and allowed me to cancel my cable. :)

    • YouTube already works on standalone Tivo boxes (and on AppleTV, btw).

  • Author an Idiot! (Score:5, Informative)

    by jdc180 ( 125863 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:39PM (#25290031)

    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.

  • by OG ( 15008 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:40PM (#25290049)

    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.

  • but why would the marketplace buy a TiVo PC? Regardless of commercial-zapping potential. Sure, $200 is decent, but there've been business models along those lines before that haven't gone anywhere (e.g., the ol' buy-a-computer-with-two-years-of-AOL-and-get-it-damn-cheap). I fail to see a true differentiator here -- at least, one that would sway any significant percentage of home computer users.

  • Product Placement.
  • I don't want to see ads anymore. If I never see another, my life will be much improved. I'm perfectly happy to pay for good content if that's the way to get it. Of course, I'm happier to get it for free, but ads are not free. Their toll is psychic.

    So right now, I block ads. Few if any make it past noscript and adblock plus combined. The rare times I use a different computer, it's like walking into Vegas. How obnoxious.

    • I'm just tired of paying for content and then also having to deal with commercials. Thank goodness I timeshift everything and can skip the commercials anyways, but what the heck? I pay for this content... why do I still have to suffer through the ads? Oh, and Tivo is a bad idea on a PC... MythTV indeed does this well, and for free... but I guess I'm not their target market.
      • When I go to the gas station, a video plays above the meter. At the grocery store, the floor has ads, and at some, a video plays at checkout. If I buy a DVD, they have ads. If I pay 10 bucks for a movie, I have to watch ads. In a magazine I subscribe to, half the pages are ads, some running several pages in a row. I'm just sick of it. So I avoid the video gas stations, ad laden supermarkets, and so on.

        I swear, they make piracy a more attractive option every single day.

        • Yes they do, and this is coming from someone who firmly, firmly believes in "thou shalt not steal" - yet I feel like my life is being stolen from me daily by these people. My peace of mind, my quiet outdoors, my personal privacy, my everything. Now, to not "steal", I buy the product (DVD, Cable TV, etc.) and then do whatever it takes to get the content in an ad free manner. They already got my money, so I am not stealing when I pull the stuff from another server or medium (anymore than downloading the Su
  • I've been using a lot of these services. Honestly, for the flexibility to watch the shows when I want how I want, I'm more than willing to watch advertisements, especially if they're targetted at my demographic.

    I really like having free and legal on-demand streaming television shows available from trustworthy sources. I would like to see these services continue and expand. I wouldn't buy TiVo for the PC, because I want to promote it, make execs think they're really onto something.

  • TiVo let viewers zap commercials on broadcast TV, TiVo PC A friend used to transfer his TIVO'd Daily Show recordings onto DVD's for me. You can't FF on a DVD the way you can on tape. So, I saw commercials I otherwise would not have seen. Theoretically he could have edited out the commercials, but there is so much you can ask of a friend. It really is not clear how this all shakes out.
    • Try the >> button instead of the >| button.

      I've yet to encounter a DVD player that didn't have a x2 x4 x8 fast forward.

      It so happens the my ferret pulled off and hid that particular button from my remote but the functionality is still there.

  • Troll alert (Score:5, Informative)

    by CSMatt ( 1175471 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @02:49PM (#25290181)

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

    I'm not kidding. [weeklystandard.com]

    • Re:Troll alert (Score:5, Informative)

      by BruceCage ( 882117 ) on Tuesday October 07, 2008 @03:00PM (#25290349)

      Ah yes, the guy who wrote the book titled "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture" [amazon.com] 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 [youtube.com].

      "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 [youtube.com] by the way.

      • Replying to my own post here.

        After watching the entire 60 minute Google Talk [youtube.com] I linked above I have to honestly say that he doesn't quite come off as a cook and might even make some interesting points.

        However, I still don't think he "Gets It" (TM), where it is the Internet. At times he makes sense, but at others he simply incoherently rants away. Later in this post I'll provide an example of this since I've transcripted some of the interesting parts from the Google Talk.

        We'll start of with an interesting sta

  • Guys like the linked blogger are so out of touch - they're so full of themselves. Like with this quote:

    "I did contact TiVo to learn more about its intentions, but -- surprise, surprise -- they never got back to me."

    The blogger implies that the obvious reason for this is because Tivo is afraid to talk to him. Somehow he doesn't understand that maybe, just maybe, Tivo has no idea who he is and doesn't want to spend all their time answering questions from every blogger on the net?

    It's pretty much the same situ

E = MC ** 2 +- 3db

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