Asymmetrical Information

However, DirecTV has announced that they're going to be selling their own PVR. Tivo's may be better, but what fraction of the new customers that Tivo needs to become profitable will go with cheaper?

Yes, Tivo is trying to cut deals with cable companies, but they have PVRs too, so it's not clear that Tivo will see a lot of revenue from the CableCos.

I am a long time TiVo user (just installed #3 after Nielson broke #2, #1 still going strong), and I hate to say it, but I am going to replace the whole danged thing with an X-Box 360.

Though the reverse tivo-to-go (copy things to your Tivo to watch them on your TV) and the open source application framework (get plugins for your tivo that run on your PC - things like iTunes, Podcasts, RSS feeds, control your PC, etc) have really given it new legs in the last 3 months.

TiVo will always be my first, though. I will remember her fondly forever. Especially when she sang "Pop goes the weasel!"

Seems to me that Tivo for years did a poor job of explaining to people just what their product really *was*. They spent lots of $ on advertising, but the ads were apparently pretty strange, featuring themes like "how to make a network executive cry" (as if anyone cared)

Nice idea, very well-done user interface, poor marketing.

(former Tivo shareholder)

The inventors, or at least the founders of Tivo have done very well once the company went public, no matter how long it takes it to turn a profit. The other people who joined Tivo later have not become as rich, but then their work was not as groundbreaking. So, at least in high-tech, smart IS rich.

David Foster brings up a very good point. I've heard of TiVo for the past few years. However, its only been in the past few months that I've actually been able to get a handle on what exactly it is that a TiVo does (as opposed to a VCR). Now, granted, I'm not a TV fan and don't watch all that often due to time constraints (Gee, wouldn't that put me pretty solidly in their target market?), but I don't exactly live in a box, either. Strangely, though, I've found this situation with a great deal of marketing. Products come out with new and often useful features, and I don't know about them (at least from the ads). It sometimes seems that the advertising world is more interested in building impressive portfolios than selling products.

"It sometimes seems that the advertising world is more interested in building impressive portfolios than selling products."

It's the responsibility of corporate marketing managers (ie, those who work for TiVo, not their creative agency) to make sure this doesn't happen. The poor advertisements commonly associated with IT firms points to weaknesses in those industry's marketing staffs.

I think there is also the problem of the two cultures. The kinds of workers who make arresting ads that can speak to the public and their advertising peers don't take well to tech toys. They themselves may not "get" it. So the tech people must communicate to the marketing people who must somehow grok all this and communicate it to the -- you know -- real PEOPLE.

Just think of how long it took for Hollywood to fully get special effects or just read about the hilarious encounters between creative and programming teams who design big budget video games -- especially 10-15 years ago when the average actor didn't know what Doom even was.

Geez, I must be an advertising retard. It took me a couple of years to figure out that the point of Dockers pants was to hide your paunch, and I still haven't figured out what the logic of the new men's deodorant is, other than its somehow supposed to be "sexy".

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