You know when I think about it, Tivos (and other DVR's) are really just a band-aid for what people really want. They want VoD (video on demand) They want to watch what they want to watch, only what they want to watch, and when they want to wach it. I'm sure it will come someday, but why does it seem that day is further and further out?
Why do we keep with this same old broadcast TV model?
Do people really like 'live' taped TV?
Is there something about watching the last episode of Friends at the same time as everyone else, even though you are with them?
I don't think so, I think that change is hard, and it will be on hard on everyone, Content producers(ABC,CBS,HBO...), Advertisers (Tide, GM, Wal-Mart...) and Pipes (at&t,Version,Cox). Do we the public have to wait on these guys, or will some one be able to become the Vonage of VoD? Can someone make a new set-top box that is network enabled, that can also line up the content that people want to see?
I would like to see Tivo try. They need to reform themselves as not a digital video recorder, but a digital video provider.
1. A box that can get any video anywhere and line up the targeted ads to go with it. A box that talks to the fridge, knows that I'm running low on x brand of butter, but shows me an ad for brand y butter, with a coupon. I think people are ok with ads that are relevant, not too intrusive.
2. A box that can become the free market of video. Anyone anywhere could produce video content and choose to any number of options, from giving it away, to allowing the box to add relevant ads, to charging per viewing, or any combination of these.
Google should really be looking about buying TiVo. Google knows how to show relevant non-intrusive ads that work, and with TiVo they could add that to TV.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I kind of agree with you. Video on Demand is certainly where the Tivo crowd would like television to be.
But exactly how bad the Tivo timeshifting model is depends on the content. News is definitely something that timeshifting works fine for. No one cares about yesterday's news. Sporting events are the next tolerable. Only real fans want to be able to watch last years game against the same opponent. TV series are a better VoD candidate, but if you're trying to keep up w/ Survivor or Desperate Housewives, you don't want to wait more than a week. Movies would obviously be a great candidate for VoD. I think Tivo was getting there with it's Starz on Demand, and certainly DirecTV is going to try to step it up.
But I don't think my mom, my wife, my grandma, or many other people really care about VoD. If they even know what Tivo is, it's because their husbands or friends have converted them and forced them to see the error of their live TV ways.
VoD is better, but the public is hardly clamoring for it.
Oh, I almost forgot. I think most people would have their TV trying to switch them to Parkay would find it pretty creepy. The world just isn't ready for that yet, either.
Maybe I'm just too geeky. :|
I think Tivo is the one who can bring video on demand. At least from a UI perspective. Look at PC's it wasn't until dare I say windows 95 that PC's really began to take off, that in combo with the internet made the PC a must have tool on everyone's desk at home and work. Thus people didn't know they needed the internet or PC's or DVD players or Microwaves, companies must create primary demand and it HAS to be easy to use.
Tivo invented the easy to use interface. They are the apple of DVR. Most people don't know what a DVR or timeshifting or any of that crap is but there is brand recognition with tivo and most people at least have an idea what a Tivo is.
I think grandma would love VOD but not if you ask her if she wanted video on demand but if if you ask if she would like to watch all the old "andy griffith" shows. I think to say that Video on demand doesn't have any demand is short sided, people want it, they just don't know it.
I was explaining tivo and VoD and bittorrent and such to my mother-in-law this evening. She is 61, but she understood it all and would definitely rather watch Lost when she wants to, preferably in HD with no ads. If I said "dvr, VoD, etc" without putting it in plain English, there is no way she'd think she needs it. I also recently saw a TV show where they were discussing going to see a new Geisha movie. It seemed a little overdone, and then I realized why. After that segment, the next commercial was for a real movie coming soon, "Memoirs of a Geisha". In retrospect, I liked how they embedded the ad. I would definitely favor the transition to well done embeded advertising over the current 18+ minutes per hour of ads done like they are now. There are certainly a lot of issues in how the industry will shift, but it must, just like music had to figure out how to give people legal online downloads. On a related note, services like VoIP share some similar issues. I wonder how many people tried Vonage, but quit because it was terrible, when in reality, their home network has/had issues, or perhaps the provider was weak. VoIP, and all such new technologies are only as good as the technology they traverse. My own major Vonage issue was an IP conflict at home that I created because my home network had grown over time and I lost track of what IP's were in use (all static). I've since diagrammed and documented it. It will certainly be interesting to see where the TV and movie industries go with it.
Post a Comment