TiVo upgrade allows instant response to TV ads

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TiVo upgrade allows instant response to TV ads

Washington Post is running an article about a TiVo upgrade that allows instant response to ads. Sounds like it will be the feature to send your contact information to companies running ads you're interested in. This is useful for people that view the long commercials in the showcase area about say, a car, and want to know more (and get a brochure sent to their house).

One concerning aspect of this update is thrown in at the very end though:

In addition, ads embedded with special "tags" will pop up as small pictures, sporting branded logos, even when users are fast-forwarding though commercials. The upgraded system will be launched with campaigns from General Motors Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s WB Television Network.

Sounds like the pop up adverts while fast forwarding is also in this update, though TiVo's PR is spinning it as a small side feature of this larger contact information opt-in. It will be interesting to see how well the final implementation looks and acts, and if it will be anything like the early betas.

by Matt Haughey July 18, 2005 in News

Comments

Being a relatively new TIVO owner, I have one question.

Can I prevent TIVO from upgrading the OS on my machine?

Posted by: Daniel W. McAndrew at Jul 18, 2005 4:49:28 PM

Interesting that TiVo will be able to do something that networks have never been able to do: put spots for competing TV shows within the adspace of other shows on competing networks.

Imagine if you could see ads for 'The Inside' when you're boop-boop-booping through CSI. Contextual advertising at its best.

Posted by: Kevin Fox at Jul 18, 2005 5:55:44 PM

Daniel, You can stop your TiVO from upgrading the software version by unplugging the phone line, but this will also stop the machine from getting guide updates, making it not very useful.

Kevin, TiVo has said that these ads will only be for the same product that is being fast forwarded. So you are fast forwarding through a Saturn commercial and a small billboard pops up for a couple of seconds that says Saturn, and you can press thumbs up if you want to see a longer version. But no Coke billboards displayed over Pepsi ads, or anything else like that.

Dylan

Posted by: Dylan at Jul 18, 2005 6:57:53 PM

Daniel, You can stop your TiVO from upgrading the software version by unplugging the phone line, but this will also stop the machine from getting guide updates, making it not very useful.

Dylan

Posted by: Dylan at Jul 18, 2005 6:58:26 PM

I pose the question because I have only seen one instance of a received message on my TIVO box. That was when I had upgraded to the Tivo-To-Go OS upgrade.

THere have been message threads that indicated other folks had issue lately due to recent upgrades - sounded like they had no control over it.

But I haven't noticed any problems myself... nor messages of updates/upgrades. I always seem to get messages about lineup changes, though.

So far, when I FF through commercials within my Now Playing videos, I don't see this effect of new pop-up ads yet.

I am wondering if I will see any messages prior to this forthcoming upgrade.

Posted by: Daniel W. McAndrew at Jul 19, 2005 5:57:54 AM

Daniel, the software to make this possible is already on your box, it just has not been really used much yet. So no, you will not get a message about this downloaded to your box, depending on the types of shows you watch, and who the commercial sponsors, it could be a long time before you see one of these ads.

Initial reports at Tivo Community indicate that the ads are pretty small, a green thumbs up, and below that a small banner that says Saturn.

Posted by: Dylan at Jul 19, 2005 9:21:52 AM

TiVo upgrade allows instant response to TV ads

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