The deal will allow TiVo, which has been struggling to differentiate its service from generic video recorders offered by cable and satellite companies, to offer a range of content and services linked to the Internet.
I have no idea what the real plan might be, but it has to be considerably more than simply remote programming of the box. I mean, who cares that I can click a link in the Yahoo TV page and have it record on my Tivo. It’s nice, but hardly the first time you can do this with a PVR and really not something worthy of the hype.
Now, what would be cool would be a feature that let you stream content from the box through Yahoo’s video platform. If you linked your Tivo to Yahoo and enabled remote access the other way you might be able to seriously shake up the nascent placeshifting market currently being driven by Sling Media and Orb Networks.
technorati tags: Yahoo, Tivo, marketing, PVR, DVR, placeshifting, Slingbox, Orb
I think it is just eye share, trying to reach more people. Yahoo and Google (Microsoft too now) are in an intense battle to expand their influence. Also, probably want to somehow get personalized web content in there at some point.
I’m a google person myself and i don’t have Tivo 🙂