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DISH & Comcast DVRs Outpace TiVo?

While TiVo focuses their resources on serving smaller and international television providers, as retail customers defect, the larger US cable and satellite companies continue to crank away on their own compelling in-house DVR services. Although DISH may have given up some ground in the Hopper’s ability to, you know, actually hop (over commercials) they just completed a nationwide software … Read more

Amazon Launches Ad Network

As a for (gadget) profit entity, we’re often on the lookout for new methods of delivering relevant yet minimally intrusive advertising. And, one effective tool has been Amazon Associates. As Amazon sells just about everything, we can hopefully maintain a certain level of editorial neutrality by spiking the occasional post or tweet with an affiliate link to whatever product we happen to be discussing (and only endorse products worthy of endorsement).

Well, beyond Amazon sales, select Associates have been granted early access to a whole new program of banner advertising – beyond Amazon inventory and paid per impression, versus a sales commission.

Banish TiVo Pause Menu Ads

Next up in our buy more TiVo series are steps to hide intrusive pause menu advertising. While TiVo produces arguably the best DVR, beyond consumer sales and service, the company augments revenue by leveraging their userbase for advertising and analytics. The vast majority of these initiatives are applied with a soft touch, but pause menu ads clearly cross the line by layering paid promos atop television content. As TiVo says,

How To Prevent Roku Theme Hijacking

Roku’s gone ahead and pulled a TiVo, having crossed that ill-defined advertising obnoxiousness line. Whereas TiVo pause menu ads layer spam atop your television content, Roku now overrides the box “theme” for full screen sponsorship like the Lego Movie or AMEX concerts (shown above). I only recently noticed this, but it’s been in play since at least late last … Read more

TiVo Mini Packaging Receives Roamio Treatment

While I can’t say the above TiVo Mini packaging is brand spanking new, I do frequent Best Buy and this is the first time I’ve seen funkadelic Roamio branding applied to other devices in TiVo’s arsenal. Beyond a bolder “TiVo” font and updated graphical elements, 6-tuner and Roamio DVRs are now referenced. Of course, I fully expected this day … Read more

Google Envisions A Future Of Smart Devices Serving Ads

Google, by way of the WSJ: We expect the definition of “mobile” to continue to evolve as more and more “smart” devices gain traction in the market. For example, a few years from now, we and other companies could be serving ads and other content on refrigerators, car dashboards, thermostats, glasses, and watches, to name … Read more

TiVo Relaunches Internet Affiliate Program

After a several year hiatus, TiVo is once again offering Internet entrepreneurs bounties for hardware and service sales… which may or may not be related to their newly appointed CMO. Whereas TiVo previously ran with the pricey Commission Junction, and featured something like $60 commissions, the new program is hosted by Share-A-Sale and storms out of the gate with pretty … Read more

Hulu Lands Fraggles Spinoff, Minus The Puppets

By way of Gigaom, we learn that Hulu is launching The Doozers this spring. The computer-animated series, consisting of 52 11-minute episodes, is aimed at preschoolers… and is sadly puppet-free. Of course, Fraggle Rock was a Jim Henson creation and one of HBO’s very first original titles debuting way back in 1983 — and a show … Read more