« TiVo gag on the Simpsons | Main | The Onion: TiVo Wishlist Roulette »

TiVo chatting up Yahoo!, Google

CNET is reporting that TiVo is courting the top two search engines, Google and Yahoo!. One possible use would be allowing people to schedule recordings for shows they find in the search engines.

Then there's the fact that both Yahoo! and Google offer video services now, which fit in with TiVo's Video Publisher. This would give TiVo access to a whole lotta Long Tail video. This would be especially powerful if TiVo opened up scheduling via web services. As this weekend's Ajax hacks showed, there's a lot of people who want their TiVo to do more. Speaking of the Long Tail—and who isn't using that buzzword these days?—the Long Tail blog shows how this could be done.

For the benefit of the deathwatch crowd, there's also talk of investment or even a buyout:

A second person familiar with the talks said TiVo has held talks with both Google and Yahoo about a potential equity investment, including the possibility of an outright acquisition. Any deal would likely be exclusive, this source said, Nothing has been finalized, however, and the talks could yet fall apart.

"A deal to cooperate could happen quickly, but then the details would have to be worked out," the first source said. "The search companies need to work with companies like TiVo because they have access to the living room, and they own a television interface."

by George Hotelling April 18, 2005 in News, TiVo

Comments