Tag Archives: tivo

Over a year ago, Tivo and RIM announced an app for Blackberry and it’s finally here. I wish I still had the Blackberry Tour to play with this app a little. I’m a devout Tivo user.

The app allows BlackBerry users with a TiVo box to access their program guide and remotely schedule recording. Yep, it’s a scheduling app. If you expected to be able to watch videos, that isn’t coming any time soon. I’ve learned when trying to export my own Tivo’d shows that most of the shows are copyprotected and not exportable, even if I’m just trying to watch them on my mobile phone.

Screenshots from Boy Genius.

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Cheers!
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Best Buy and TiVo are two companies that are looking to change their image, according to a recent article in The New York Times. So the two companies are teaming up in orer to collectively achieve this goal. The partnership details that Best Buy will be heavily promoting TiVo and its products, with TiVo working to integrate with more products sold at Best Buy. It’s a sensible cooperation from a high level, and I can’t help but notice how both companies have also begun to turn to online and social media tactics to individually reach similar goals as well.

So could a deeper dive into social media be fitting now that Best Buy and TiVo have joined forces? Let’s take a quick look at what we’ve seen so far. TiVo has begun to offer direct access to web-based media sites such as YouTube through its settop box. Best Buy has released an API that enables web developers to integrate product information with their own applications.

Looks like these companies are on the right track as far as social media integration goes, though TiVo has faced competition on several fronts from big brands, cable companies, and even newcomers such as Boxee. But seeing as TiVo has already instilled itself in a social media strategy of sorts, Best Buy may already be able to leverage this stance going forward in the partnership. So what could some next steps be?

As far as social media integration goes, Best Buy and TiVo already have seemingly different motives and junctions. TiVo would benefit largely from the actual media integration, offering its service as an extended point of distribution for existing social media products. Best Buy on the other hand would likely benefit more from product recommendations through social media sites, along with consumer data that can relate directly back to their products for metrics, price points, etc. All of this can be localized and parsed differently according to various demographics.

Combine all of these options and you may have an interesting point of entry for Best buy to access a wider range of consumer data, which can be heavily tied in with product recommendations across the web. As Best Buy already has an API, the downside to this is that it still must rely on developers for implementation purposes. This could use up an entire set of resources for outreach and retainment alone. While I still think the API approach is great, Best Buy’s partnership with TiVo in this regard could be largely supplemental.

by Michelle Lentz

Tivo is equal-opportunity when it comes to On Demand video. In addition to Amazon downloads and a NetFlix partnership, Tivo is now adding a partnership with Blockbuster.

Despite the fact that I have a Blockbuster card somewhere in my house, I can’t remember the last time I actually wandered into a bricks and mortar store for a movie. After all, there is NetFlix. Blockbuster, however, has a lot more new releases than NetFlix, so this is a useful partnership for everyone, users included.  In return for the on-screen access, Blockbuster will be selling Tivo boxes in their physical stores.

According to Jim Keyes, Blockbuster CEO, “Ultimately, our vision is to work with TiVo so that their subscribers can access movies not only through our OnDemand service but also from our stores and through our by-mail service as well. Regardless of a film’s availability – through VOD or on DVD – we want to work with TiVo to provide their subscribers unprecedented access to movie content.”

Obviously Blockbuster is catching on that in our current century, you can’t depend on just a physical location for sales. You need to be everywhere. In a write-up in the USA Today, Kevin Lewis, Blockbuster’s senior vice president for digital mentions that he plans to offer Blockbuster OnDemand video to Internet-connected Blu-ray players, televisions, mobile phones and portable entertainment products.

Well, Blockbuster, my PS3 is waiting.

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by Michelle Lentz

Oh no! You’re on the road to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving turkey and you realize – you forgot to tell your Tivo to record the Peanuts Thanksgiving Special. After all, what’s a holiday without Snoopy?

Tivo to the rescue.

Yesterday on MobileCrunch I read about the new Mobile Tivo site at http://m.tivo.com. You need an internet-enabled phone and an internet-enabled Tivo. That’s it – you’re all set. The new site, which is in beta, allows you to search, view, record, set your preferred DVR, and more.

As I said, the site is in Beta. I seemed to run into a wall whenever I tried to assign a show to my DVR. We’ll see if it actually worked (and if I end up with a Snoopy Thanksgiving special). The site is new, so give them some time. It’s a great idea though. I fully admit to having used both my Blackberry and my iPhone at different points to access the full Tivo site and program a show remotely. I’m such the TV junkie.

Cheers!

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