With the advent of the Internet becoming the platform for on-demand video entertainment, I’m beginning to wonder what TiVo is going to do long-term. If I can go to the Internet and watch the show that I want to watch, when I want to watch it, why do I need TiVo?
I’m sure this is the reason Tivo has partnered with several companies to expand their offering. Rhapsody is now available and they have also expanded their search capability to include video on the web. These are great but are really transitional offerings at best. Tivo also partners with Amazon for their Unbox service, which has recently come under suspicion as being on the way out.
TiVo’s CEO Tom Rogers was quoted as saying:
I like to think of (a TiVo box) now as a digital video receiver. The idea we’re building toward is, anything tha’s out there, from any source, you need TiVo to get it, organize it and make it fast and easy to be able to find it.
That’s what the Internet is and I have a PC that does that so why would I need a DVR? Maybe TiVo should tack a monitor and keyboard on to their box. Or maybe someone needs to invent an ad zapper for the Internet. Oh wait. . . Either way, I don’t think TiVo has much of a long-term future.
