TiVo Expands to Broadband Search
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TiVo announced today that they are now offering the capability to search not only cable and satellite programming sources, but now broadband content as well. The boundary between traditional TV programming has now been breached. It only remains to see how TiVo users will respond to the increased content offerings.
At the heart of this new feature is strategic partnerships that TiVo has formed with NetFlix, Amazon, YouTube, and others. The amount of content between these companies is staggering. If there was ever any doubt – the days of channeling surfing are over. Instead, TV and video content has been in the words of the CEO of TiVo has been “Googleized”.
And why not? It’s a natural extension of searching for information and content on the Web to the TV set.
The partnership with NetFlix now allows TiVi users to choose from thousands of DVDs directly to their TV via TiVo for a fixed fee. This has the potential to make the old-fashioned model of mailing DVDs back and forth obsolete. Certainly a thread to NetFlix’ own business model and that of their main competitor Blockbuster. Fortunately for NetFlix, it;’s them and not Blockbuster that struck this partnership now with TiVo.
Being able to search YouTube for videos and Amazon for products is a bit less to get excited about. This is something that you’ve been able to do for several years now with Windows Media Center equipped entertainment centers. However, further convergence of TV and the Web on a wider scale is part of an inevitable trend.
TiVo’s CEO indicated that the company is positioning itself more as a software solution though their hardware boxes are still a vital component of their service.
One additional feature of the new TiVo service is the ability to order a pizza from Domino’s whiling sitting on your coach watching TV.