Comments on: Poor TiVo http://blog.acmelab.org/2006/04/18/poor-tivo/ random noises emanating from the boston area Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:37:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Lyle http://blog.acmelab.org/2006/04/18/poor-tivo/comment-page-1/#comment-409 Lyle Fri, 05 May 2006 09:22:00 +0000 http://blog.acmelab.org/2006/04/18/poor-tivo/#comment-409 Think yourself lucky to be in the US and to have people even *vaguely* know what you're talking about. In the UK, I've got one, and I know a couple of other people with them, but they just never took off. I think there's maybe 10,000 (possibly more, I haven't looked in a while) users in the UK at all. We never even got a look at the S2 boxes. Of course, over here the PVR market has been taken over by <a href="http://www.sky.com/ordersky/equipment/skyplus" rel="nofollow">Sky+</a>, which works well, but is still nowhere near as useful as TiVo. (Although it does have two tuners, instead of TiVo's one) I think the thing that really screwed TiVo was that to appreciate the uses of it, you've got to demonstrate it. All the friends I've shown TiVo to have thought it brilliant. None of them got what it did from the adverts. TiVo needed more TV advertising, ironic when you consider it was great for skipping ads in the first place. It needed demos, examples, even (dare I say it) TiVo evangelists, people who would go out and show what it could do, and sell it on the back of what it did, rather than trying to do this by print ads and hoardings. Think yourself lucky to be in the US and to have people even *vaguely* know what you’re talking about.

In the UK, I’ve got one, and I know a couple of other people with them, but they just never took off. I think there’s maybe 10,000 (possibly more, I haven’t looked in a while) users in the UK at all. We never even got a look at the S2 boxes.

Of course, over here the PVR market has been taken over by Sky+, which works well, but is still nowhere near as useful as TiVo. (Although it does have two tuners, instead of TiVo’s one)

I think the thing that really screwed TiVo was that to appreciate the uses of it, you’ve got to demonstrate it. All the friends I’ve shown TiVo to have thought it brilliant. None of them got what it did from the adverts.

TiVo needed more TV advertising, ironic when you consider it was great for skipping ads in the first place. It needed demos, examples, even (dare I say it) TiVo evangelists, people who would go out and show what it could do, and sell it on the back of what it did, rather than trying to do this by print ads and hoardings.

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