Behind the website: when you're at the helm of a shitstorm

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Behind the website: when you're at the helm of a shitstorm

The media blog has a good post looking at how the TiVo ad meme grew from this site and kind of got out of hand. I feel bad about it -- on the one hand TiVo is a company and technology that changed my life and that I love, but I thought the original point of bigger ads while you avoid ads is a bad feature for customers. When I meant this was big news, I mean in terms of the TiVo UI, not in terms of how evil TiVo was being. Now that things kind of got nuts, I wanted to explain how it happened.

The backstory
I was really surprised that my little teaser post started such a controversy. On Monday, a LA Times reporter called me, told me basically that TiVo was going to have huge banner ads whenever you hit fast forward, and asked what I thought of it. I was taken aback, since it didn't sound at all like the TiVo I loved, but that was all the info I had to go on.

I knew it would be big news and I still couldn't believe it, but I didn't want to scoop the reporter. I hadn't posted anything substantial at PVRblog in a while, so I thought I'd put a small teaser meant to be like "hey, big news coming tomorrow that will be kind of bad and people might flip out." It's tough to think about this stuff in hindsight, knowing what we now know, but I didn't think it'd be such a self-fulfilling prophecy. But on the other hand, I could tell it would be a big thing, much bigger than the gold star showcase ads that everyone freaked out about a couple years ago (which I thought people totally went overboard on -- I actually watch about 75% of them).

Sativo2tivocentralbrilliantbutcancelled
The "goldstar" ads on TiVo Central -- once thought to be the death of TiVo

A few hours later, the article came out and had a few more details, but still was short on particulars. What I didn't know was that the TiVo Community boards were all abuzz and well on the road to freakout before the rest of the web.

The Backlash
So when the article came out, I made the post. I didn't want to totally flip out about it, but I did want to make a point out of the fact it is pushing ads at the exact point where you're trying to skip them, and how that doesn't quite jibe with how TiVo has operated in the past (it never gets in the way of letting you get around ads). The image I made in five minutes probably didn't help matters, and my "no longer tivo your way, it's tivo their way" was me trying to write a bit too much drama. From there, it got taken up by a zillion other blogs including slashdot. I've been blogging on other sites for over five years now, and know how reactionary we bloggers can be. I should have considered that before I got the ball rolling.

Days later, we know quite a bit more than the original reporter's rumors. tivopony has cleared up a few misconceptions, and it'll likely be built upon a feature already present in TiVo, what they call IPreview, a way they let you know you can record a program while watching a commercial, like this:

Tivoipreview
Hit thumbs up to get more info about a commercial, as seen today in TiVo

The Conclusion
Basically, it's going to be like the current feature, but instead of that thumbs up, you'll see something maybe 1/8th to 1/4 of the screen. Still kinda sucky, but I'm coming around to it being a necessary evil. I still wish TiVo wouldn't do this, but I know they have to make a buck to survive, so in the biggest picture sense, in a way this for users, so that TiVo will stick around. I'm not sure how many advertisers will adopt this, or how helpful it will be, but I'm curious what the final version looks like.

As much as I had a part in this whole mess, when I started noticing all the people saying they weren't going to buy a tivo, would think about selling their TiVos, and even trying to start a class action lawsuit against TiVo (for what exactly, I don't know), I knew things steamrolled out of control, and I'm kind of sad to know I was part of getting this backlash started. If I could do it all over again with a more level head to calm the troops, I certainly would, but I had so little info to go on and now that more has come to light it's not as bad as I once thought.

I'd hate to see blogs get known for reactionary authors (if it's not too late already), and I wish I had more interactions with TiVo HQ. I should have immediately contacted their PR folks after talking with the Times to get more backstory, because it was just too awful to believe. I hope TiVo and other companies embrace bloggers like me in the future, and don't keep us at arms length, or feel compelled to apease us to prevent future flameouts. We love the company and could have guessed the backlash was going to be big days ahead of its release. If you read this far, hopefully you understand why things got to where they are and it's my hope this whole thing blows over.

The bright side
TiVo ToGo is rumored to be coming out in December (I'd say it's almost for sure), and everything I'm hearing from testers is that it's fantastic and quite easy to use. I can't wait for it and hope it comes to my DirecTiVo, though I'm not holding my breath.

(Screenshots courtesy of the excellent PVR Comparisons site.)

by Matt Haughey November 18, 2004 in Op-Ed

Comments

Thanks for posting this.

I think the interesting thing to look at is the reaction to the two big news posts you made.

92 comments to the TiVo news (plus 29 on the 'big news coming' and 17 on the 'unhappy' post)...

*4* on the post about congress considering a bill that would curtail all of our rights.

(And 0 on the post of TiVoPony's facts.)

I think that's interesting.

Posted by: MegaZone at Nov 18, 2004 11:24:01 PM

The gold stars may not have been the end of TiVo, but they certainly were for me. I sold off mine last year and switched to a spam-free non-networked (i.e. big-vrother-free) PVR/DVD-recorder from Panasonic. Each time I see news like this from TiVo, I smile at the mental contortions TiVo boosters will go through out of cognitive dissonance...

Posted by: Fazal Majid at Nov 19, 2004 12:48:56 AM

If anything, this debacle lets TiVo know they should keep the blogosphere *more* in the loop. Bloggers will be forever reactionary and furthermore most likely to be TiVo's customer base. By using a journalist as the information conduit its easy for miscommunications and freakouts to occur. TiVo's PR department should have had screenshots or even videos available demo'ing the changes.

Would a newspaper print these handouts? No. But you bet bloggers would. It would have stemmed the flow and maybe hastened the inevitable (user screenshots and bitching).

Posted by: dendrite at Nov 19, 2004 1:43:58 AM

Give yourself a break, Matt. If people turn on TiVo, it's because TiVo's turning on them. You're just the messenger.

Posted by: Derek Powazek at Nov 19, 2004 1:44:38 AM

Matt,
Don't feel bad. I received the same criticism that you have since I reacted to your post. I say keep up the good work! To some people this was horrible news. To others it was nothing but another way in which TiVo is trying to make some revenue. In either case, you've done an honorable service by posting this news and letting the reader decided how important it is to them.

Posted by: Alex at Nov 19, 2004 3:41:58 AM

I'm not going to kiss your ass like other posters.

You purposefully blew things out of proportion trying to cause drama and get you traffic.

Next time post some facts, and not just your twisted interpretation of them.

Posted by: Jacob at Nov 19, 2004 5:18:00 AM

I submitted the story to Slashdot and hoped for the the negative backlash there and other places on the internet. Stick with your original reaction Matt. This is horrible. Terrible. It is the first moment down a slippery slope that will escalate.

TiVo users want freedom from ads. This sends a terrible message and I can only hope that as I've gotten the sense that it's only for stand alone PVRs (can somebody confirm this ) that my HDTV DirecTV unit will not be infected by this virus. Keep your spam off of my tv. We should be saying things like this.

I've been nothing but positive about TiVo in general up until this idiotic move on their part.

As an aside, TiVo should allow users the option to pay extra (either monthly or on a lifetime basis) to be extempted from this parasite. Why not let someone pay an extra .25 cents a month or an extra $20 for lifetime or whatever and not be subjected to this barrage of intrusion into their own home.

Matt, I understand that by breaking this story for the blogsphere you feel responsible and that with the popularity of your blog you have significant power in this area (as well as responsiblity) but this is not a good thing.

Posted by: Thomas Hawk at Nov 19, 2004 5:21:14 AM

Eh. Whatever.

As one of the chicken-little posters in the original thread, the thing that got me going was the realization that Tivo was serious about pursuing advertisers as a revenue source. This ad feature was the first thing that convinced me that they were serious about this. Honestly, now that I've had time to think about this, the banners are insignificant, but the trend they represent is not.

Also, while some of us may have gotten out of hand, the fact is that Tivo could have done more to manage some of the speculation and get control of things. As a customer, I'm extremely frustrated at how tight-lipped the company is at times. Tivo needs to engage its users and let them know what they are up to and why. An occasional TivoPony post doesn't cut it in the weblog era. Bloggers are the type of people that adopted Tivo to begin with, and given Tivo's anemic marketing, blogs (such as this site) are responsible for much of Tivo's word-of-mouth success.

Furthermore, with respect to new features and products, Tivo would be well suited to set release dates rather than string people along as they have with TivoToGo. In my eyes, the handling of the TivoToGo has been a disaster. It's been "coming soon" for so long, it's in the same mental bin as the famous "Duke Nukem Forever". Tivo exists in an time and place where people want more information from them, and if they don't do more to satisfy that desire, users and bloggers will take what they can get and extrapolate the rest. Another thing that I bitch about regularly is the CableCard Tivo. We know that Tivo has filed papers with the FCC regarding this technology, but as a very interested user who wants to snap this up as soon as possible, I have no idea when it's coming out or if it's coming out. More light and less mystery from Tivo would be greatly appreciated and would serve as an inhibitor to future shitstorms.

Another company that frustrates me in the same way is Apple. The difference between Tivo and Apple is that while both promise new features, Apple actually delivers on them from time-to-time. MacOS X has grown greatly in features and applications in the last couple years. Contrast that with my Series 2 DVR that has not introduced any new features or changes since Home Media Option. (HMO was my tipping point for getting a new Tivo.) Where is the improved compatibility with AAC? Where are the ways to view my networked movie files via HMO?

Where I'm originally from, they have an insightful phrase - "Wish in one hand, sh*t in the other. See which fills up first." I could say how this is relevant, but I imagine Tivo users see it immediately. Tivo needs to be more open, continually refine its product so users have something else to brag about, and get out of their PR tower and engage the masses more from time to time via forums such as PVRblog.

You may have started a shitstorm, but Tivo is responsible for creating an information climate where one could brew.

Posted by: Chris at Nov 19, 2004 5:46:54 AM

Matt, you're so right about us going off half-cocked. I did a tongue-in-cheek post on my blog about Microsoft screen scraping Google's results to seed their own index... I had anecdotal data but nothing that was irrefutable. Since I got all worked up about the 'possible implications' of such an action I went ahead and posted against my better judgement. When it was all said and done the post was /.-ed, in every search engine marketing forum and Google as well as MSN responded to it. All over a post that was nothing more than a hunch really.

Blogger + Hype - Facts = Sensationalism

I'm going to try to make my formula a little more like

Blogger + Facts - Raw Emotion + Expert Opinion = Quality Content

The original post that caused all the controversy is
[http://www.marketingshift.com/2004/11/microsoft-crawling-google-results-for.cfm]

Posted by: Jason Dowdell at Nov 19, 2004 6:24:48 AM

TiVo needs to realize that things happen today at Internet speed. When this story broke (however it did), they needed to act to calm things down, rather than do nothing. It reminds me of a certain weblog software company that is still feeling the effects of the same sort of thing. From what you are describing, this new "feature" will not bother me in the least. What does bother me is when a company doesn't feel like it needs to explain things to the customers.

Posted by: Michael Pate at Nov 19, 2004 7:07:01 AM

"You purposefully blew things out of proportion trying to cause drama and get you traffic. Next time post some facts, and not just your twisted interpretation of them."

I didn't blow things out on purpose. I had information that was basically "large banner ads coming to TiVo when you hit FF" and that's all I had to go on. Given the information that's come out since then (only during ads, only an ad during the same ad being fast forwarded, just the ipreview stuff, but with a graphic), it softens the blow, but that information wasn't anywhere online.

Not many bloggers call companies to get more info about a story before posting about it, but if I hear a rumor this big in the future, I'll definitely check into it first.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Nov 19, 2004 7:47:45 AM

Well, this is one more reason (the yellow stars being the first), that I feel like Tivo will have to do without me as a customer. When my Tivo dies (I've got a lifetime subscription), I won't be buying another. It'll likely be a MythTV unit replacing it.

When I buy something...I don't expect it to morph into another product *after* I bring it home. If I bought a microwave, I wouldn't want it turning into a toaster 2 weeks later.

Posted by: Eric at Nov 19, 2004 9:23:22 AM

I'm constantly amazed at how some Tivo owners expect Tivo to survive without adapting to the constraints of the market and using opportunities to grow revenue. Note that these would be the first people to whine if Tivo were to go out of business due to revenue shortfalls and/or due to regulatory or legal issues.

People who whine about gold star ads and/or these pop-ups need to understand that Tivo is a business and that this is the real world. Obviously, Tivo would be insane to alienate its user base by doing things that SIGNIFICANTLY negatively affect the user's viewing experience. These EXTREMELY MINOR changes have no significant effect and offer Tivo significant revenue to continue operations. The ONLY people who seem to find seeing a gold star on a list or having an ad billboard flash by during FF'ing are a MINORITY OF PEOPLE WHO WHINE ABOUT NEARLY EVERYTHING. Get over it.

Posted by: Brad at Nov 19, 2004 9:44:22 AM

Brad, as one of those whiners (let's call it as it is), I've been vocal in my complaints over the past few days because I care enough about Tivo that I want it to succeed. Now, I don't hold an MBA or anything like that, but I believe that Tivo's current strategy to grow and survive will fail in the long run. The only reason that Tivo is a verb is that Tivo created an extremely innovative product that changed people's way of watching TV. However, the core Tivo functionality has not evolved to continue changing the way people watch TV and interact with their media, while crappy competitors are catching up. At the moment, the only advantages Tivo enjoys are season passes, a nice interface, and HMO. Season passes are easily replicated in other products, interface is less important than functionality, and HMO is in the same state as the first day it was introduced. Given that Tivo has a significant disadvantage in that equipment must be purchased and a monthly fee paid, people like myself worry that Tivo focusing on things like advertisers while competitors match and surpass Tivo's user functionality will only lead to its demise.

Given the structure of the market where Tivo is a small fry compared to the TimeWarners, Comcasts, and Microsofts, the only way that Tivo will survive and thrive as an independent entity will be to create and continue to develop products that users fall over themselves purchase and evangelize. Compare the Apple users to Windows users. Apple users are fanatics about their platforms, while Windows users tolerate their operating systems. Tivo was a pro at developing an Apple-like userbase and has seemed to given up as of late and is courting advertisers instead.

I think that given the structure of the market, Tivo is destined to remain a niche product in a sea of bad Comcast knock-offs and PC-based PVRs. It won't survive as an ad platform in such a niche while ignoring its users. Tivo needs to be ruthless with respect to user features and innovation if it is to survive. Courting Pepsi while its users are defecting to other PVRs that are still innovating or becoming cheaper demonstrates how broken the current thinking at the top of Tivo is.

Posted by: Chris at Nov 19, 2004 10:06:22 AM

Chris, it's not an "either/or" situation. Tivo should be doing improvements to their base capability (e.g. upcoming Tivo-To-Go, following on this year's HMO) AND looking for revenue opportunities from advertisers and other sources (e.g. Netflix, FF ads, etc.) AND managing the feature set so that they don't run afoul of the MPAA (read: billions of $ behind a LOT of lawyers) and federal constraints (e.g. upcoming broadcast flag, bizarre FF legislation, etc.).

I think Tivo's doing a decent job in this area. I agree, I wish there were more features added, as I think it would help increase subscriber interest. Tivo's main failing in expanding their business, in my opinion, is a lack of TV-based marketing, and leveraging their brand name. Yes, it's expensive, but the payback is worth it in the long run.

None of this excuses the level of whining I see on Tivo forums over passive or easily ignored advertiser-based revenue features that Tivo has deployed. The last time I checked, Tivo wasn't a charity or a non-profit organization. I think they do a pretty good job of placing the ads for minimal impact to the Tivo user. It could be a LOT WORSE.

Posted by: Brad at Nov 19, 2004 11:18:21 AM

Brad, you're correct that it's not _currently_ an either-or situation. However, should Tivo Inc. achieve its goal of having equal amounts of revenue coming from users and advertisers, I can see Tivo being easily placed in an either-or situation in the future. Imagine the advertisers collaborating and demanding that Tivo slow down or eliminate the fast forward feature when their ads are being shown on Tivo devices. Tivo can either implement this feature and lose a portion of its users or it can not implement it and lose its advertisers. Given that advertisers are less locked into the Tivo platform than the users, I don't trust them to use their financial clout in ways that benefit the users.

Of course, this is a hypothetical situation. However, should Tivo succeed in attaining the financial structure where it is as beholden to advertisers as much as users, expect the users to lose in these situations as they are less likely to switch due to lock-in and are unable to effectively mount a challenge to the advertisers as they are more dispersed and less able to coordinate than the advertisers. Eventually, the advertisers will get the upper hand, at which point the entire idea behind Tivo becomes moot.

The danger is not in this particular feature, but rather serving two masters where one master has more power than the other and the goals of the two masters are quite often opposed.

Posted by: Chris at Nov 19, 2004 11:51:43 AM

People need to remember that TiVo, like all companies, has finite resources.

I talk to people at TiVo (well, exchange email with them) not irregularly, as an 'All-Star' on the TiVo Help Forums I also talk to TiVo to clear things up or escalte issues, I even dropepd by for a visit to TiVo HQ when I was on a trip out their way. I have also personally filed just a few RFEs with TiVo: http://www.megazone.org/TiVo/TiVo-RFEs.html

The people at TiVo are fully aware of all the things they could do, and want to do them. But there is only so much they can do. They need to tackle the things with the most ROI to gain marketshare, make licensees happy (and get more of them), and built a revenue stream that will allow them to continue to ad new features.

TiVoToGo looks to be great - and I don't know where people have been getting their info, but when it was announced it was always 'fall'. And as it got closer they said it would be late fall. So, from TiVo, it hasn't been imminent until recently - and they still say they're confident it will be out this fall - they have about a month left.

I'm sure some people will be disappointed because TTG isn't all singing and all dancing. But it is just a first release. There will be upgrades and more features. I'm sure sending content to the TiVo will come.

A lot of people seem to discount the work TiVo did in bringing out the HDTV DirecTV model and the DVD-RW units. As well as the engineering work that went into the new reference platform (used on the silver S2 units, and the new Toshiba and Humax units, as well as the newer DTV boxes). Standalone DVRs aren't a long term market, TiVo knows that. It will be increasingly hard to market a 'DVR-only' box that goes head to head with leased boxes from satellite and cable companies. Which is why TiVo is working hard to get their software into more consumer products - and they've established relationships with Pioneer, Toshiba, and Humax. And why they continue to work to get their software into cable boxes. (Which is a highly insular market - MS has spent many years and dollars and are just now getting entry.)

And yes, they have longer term efforts, like CableCARD. TiVo isn't going to rush things - the first CableCARD DVR hasn't even hit the streets yet, so they're hardly very late to the game. Personally I think they'll say something at CES2005 in January. (Memo to self - you keep forgetting to book your flight, dumbass!)

They're not sitting on their thumbs, and if you get the chance to talk to TiVo folks (like at CES - if you're a geek the show is a hell of a lot of fun) you'll find that they are just as eager to add these features and bring out products as you are to have them. But they're constrained by the realities of business and the limits of resources.

Don't write them off because they haven't done everything, all at once.

Posted by: MegaZone at Nov 19, 2004 6:35:33 PM

MegaZone: "I'm sure some people will be disappointed because TTG isn't all singing and all dancing. But it is just a first release. There will be upgrades and more features. I'm sure sending content to the TiVo will come."

I remember hearing the same thing about HMO. I still can't play unencrypted AAC audio or other non-MP3 sources. /snark

You're right that Tivo has limited resources and needs to expand their base. The NetFlix thing is wonderful in this respect. CableCard will be awesome, but Tivo should hurry on that one. For every person that gets a HDTV cable box from their cable companies is one less customer for Tivo. If I end up going HDTV before Tivo comes out with a CableCard box, I'll probably tolerate the cable DVR, and not pick up a Tivo. If they can get some out before I switch to HDTV, I'll pick one up in a heartbeat and CableCard Tivo may be the thing that makes me finally upgrade. They should release a solid product, but they can't afford to be slow about it. As for the finite resources, the Tivo user in me cries out for them to use them on things like the NetFlix partnership, not ad "features".

Posted by: Chris at Nov 19, 2004 9:08:01 PM

You can play non-MP3 sources. There are a number of 3rd party HMO servers, some will transcode your files on the fly. J. River was one of the first, it came out pretty much simultaneously with HMO.

In the same way the TiVo Desktop actually reformats all images to JPEG before sending to the TiVo. They're using the onboard MPEG decoder - which is why they use MP3 and JPEG.

The new Toshiba and Humax DVD units can also playback WMA CDs and DVDs, so maybe they'll add support for native WMA playback over HMO (well, HMF these days) as well.

Posted by: MegaZone at Nov 19, 2004 9:17:24 PM

BTW - I would encourage anyone who is seriously interested in seeing TiVo improve the product and add new features to fill out a beta application and keep it current: http://www.tivo.com/4.7.asp

It is probably the best way to have direct feedback on the development process.

Posted by: MegaZone at Nov 19, 2004 9:19:19 PM

MegaZone: "You can play non-MP3 sources. There are a number of 3rd party HMO servers, some will transcode your files on the fly. J. River was one of the first, it came out pretty much simultaneously with HMO."

vs.

"I'm sure some people will be disappointed because TTG isn't all singing and all dancing. But it is just a first release. There will be upgrades and more features. I'm sure sending content to the TiVo will come."

You certainly have an interesting definition of upgrades and new features. :-) However, in the context of HMO (and potentially T2G), how many of these third party servers will be functional when the content being schlepped around contains DRM? Granted, this is not just Tivo's problem (which is why I didn't bring iTMS files into the discussion originally), but I'd rather have some officially supported ways of using these files on my Tivo that didn't involve breaking stupid US laws.

I'd rather rely on Tivo to take the lead and implement these things rather than relying on 3rd parties. But you do bring up a perfectly correct point that I can do these things via third parties. Perhaps I'm whining too much by thinking that Tivo Inc. should take the lead and include this with the core product.

(BTW - J. River doesn't work for us Mac users. I'll give JavaHMO a look though.)

Posted by: Chris at Nov 21, 2004 7:13:29 AM

Does anyone have a logical explanation as to why TiVo doesnt manufacture a dual tuner box?
I know they have a reference set.
Ive heard management say its a supply chain / product portfolio rationalization issue.
I would imagine theres a minor differential in hardward cost.
But it still feels like the lack of a dual tuner model has had the single biggest effect on stand-alone user uptake (distribution issues aside).

Posted by: New York at Nov 21, 2004 11:06:17 AM

Behind the website: when you're at the helm of a shitstorm

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