My rant on TiVo and its business practices, By Amber
Monday, January 25, 2010 by Amber
'Oh Monday -- What have I ever done to you?'
Well, here's a Monday treat: Enter now to win the third (of five) Hello Kitty USB flash drive! This one is bright red, and looks like Miss Kitty is wearing an apple costume -- pure and simple in design, it packs 2 gigabytes of storage into a drive smaller than a lighter and infinitely cuter!
Email me at ByteSized@Captivate.com if you haven't already entered your name to win! If you have, well, I always like getting fun emails, but it won't up your chances! Click HERE for the official rules, in case you're interested ...
And remember: If you want to bypass the whole giveaway, head straight over to http://www.mimoco.com/ to by your own before they're sold out! At $24,99 each, how can you resist, really?
Now, onto bigger things ... I'd like to talk to you all about TiVo.
We all know how much I love my TiVo. If I had to ditch my satellite TV and go back to bunny ears (or their now-digital equivalent), I'd still save enough money to keep this service running -- that's how much I love it. And, I don't mean DVRs in general -- the competitors made by DirecTV and Comcast are laughable in comparison. Terrible GUIs and databases, and brand recognition is embarrassing.
Anyway, so why am I ranting on TiVo? Well, the company recently announced they are pursuing a lawsuit against AT&T for patent infringement. Fine, they aren't paying you for taking a portion of your technology that, really, you never had 100% claim to (more on that in a sec). But, in response to TiVo's suit, now *Microsoft* has filed a counter suit on TiVo as a way to back up AT&T, one of their big-time sponsor companies.
So, Microsoft is suing Tivo because TiVo is suing AT&T. Got it?
Now, how this will all play out legally really doesn't matter to me. I just want to take a moment to recognize two separate camps in the battle: the TiVo engineers and the TiVo management.
Tivo engineers: You guys are awesome. Thank you so much for making an amazing product that I adore and that has changed the way I watch TV forever. You guys totally rock, and I'm so sorry that your management is being retarded and not giving your product enough exposure and, honestly, making your job go unnoticed. They are *actively trying* to put you all out of business. Totally sucks.
TiVo Management, meet me at Camera Three: Are you all completely out of your ever-loving minds? Your engineers and software guys gift-wrap for you the best, highest quality DVR on the market, and it's like you're in a sick competition to see how horrendously you can eff it up. First, you screw up deals with Comcast AND DirecTV separately, both of whom made absolute crap products to try to duplicate your DVR and failed. Then you miraculously get back in their good graces long enough to pick a fight with *Microsoft*, a company who could buy and sell you twice in its sleep? Seriously??!!
Look, guys, I'm sorry you have brand management issues with your product being verb-ified and losing its cache -- 'I have to TiVo the game,' in the same way 'I need a Kleenex,' and 'Let's FedEx that package' -- but please fire *every single person* giving you such terrible business advice and hire intelligent people to manage your business! Geez!!
For more on this story (but without any commentary from yours truly) DOW JONES has a wrap on it.
See you all back here Wednesday, when I announced this week's Hello Kitty Winner!!
Well, here's a Monday treat: Enter now to win the third (of five) Hello Kitty USB flash drive! This one is bright red, and looks like Miss Kitty is wearing an apple costume -- pure and simple in design, it packs 2 gigabytes of storage into a drive smaller than a lighter and infinitely cuter!Email me at ByteSized@Captivate.com if you haven't already entered your name to win! If you have, well, I always like getting fun emails, but it won't up your chances! Click HERE for the official rules, in case you're interested ...
And remember: If you want to bypass the whole giveaway, head straight over to http://www.mimoco.com/ to by your own before they're sold out! At $24,99 each, how can you resist, really?
Now, onto bigger things ... I'd like to talk to you all about TiVo.
We all know how much I love my TiVo. If I had to ditch my satellite TV and go back to bunny ears (or their now-digital equivalent), I'd still save enough money to keep this service running -- that's how much I love it. And, I don't mean DVRs in general -- the competitors made by DirecTV and Comcast are laughable in comparison. Terrible GUIs and databases, and brand recognition is embarrassing.
Anyway, so why am I ranting on TiVo? Well, the company recently announced they are pursuing a lawsuit against AT&T for patent infringement. Fine, they aren't paying you for taking a portion of your technology that, really, you never had 100% claim to (more on that in a sec). But, in response to TiVo's suit, now *Microsoft* has filed a counter suit on TiVo as a way to back up AT&T, one of their big-time sponsor companies.
So, Microsoft is suing Tivo because TiVo is suing AT&T. Got it?
Now, how this will all play out legally really doesn't matter to me. I just want to take a moment to recognize two separate camps in the battle: the TiVo engineers and the TiVo management.
Tivo engineers: You guys are awesome. Thank you so much for making an amazing product that I adore and that has changed the way I watch TV forever. You guys totally rock, and I'm so sorry that your management is being retarded and not giving your product enough exposure and, honestly, making your job go unnoticed. They are *actively trying* to put you all out of business. Totally sucks.
TiVo Management, meet me at Camera Three: Are you all completely out of your ever-loving minds? Your engineers and software guys gift-wrap for you the best, highest quality DVR on the market, and it's like you're in a sick competition to see how horrendously you can eff it up. First, you screw up deals with Comcast AND DirecTV separately, both of whom made absolute crap products to try to duplicate your DVR and failed. Then you miraculously get back in their good graces long enough to pick a fight with *Microsoft*, a company who could buy and sell you twice in its sleep? Seriously??!!
Look, guys, I'm sorry you have brand management issues with your product being verb-ified and losing its cache -- 'I have to TiVo the game,' in the same way 'I need a Kleenex,' and 'Let's FedEx that package' -- but please fire *every single person* giving you such terrible business advice and hire intelligent people to manage your business! Geez!!
For more on this story (but without any commentary from yours truly) DOW JONES has a wrap on it.
See you all back here Wednesday, when I announced this week's Hello Kitty Winner!!
Labels: ATT, Hello Kitty Giveaway, Microsoft, TiVo
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Amber Plante is your guide through the geektastic worlds of science, technology and pop culture -- the Q to your James Bond, the Cortana to your Master Chief and the McGonagall to your Harry Potter, so to speak. She makes the technobabble make sense and shows you the fantastic wired world of the Internet in a whole new light. Are you a geek, too? Don't worry, you're in good company.