advertising on TiVo

[cinetb]

Hello everybody,

I've heard that TiVo in now inserting interactive advertising on its EPG that it is available while you perform a search or other operations.
Do you have further information about it?

Thanks very much.

[Dan203]

The only "interactive advertising" are the little thumbs up adds that appear when you FF past a commercial which has special instructions embedded in the VBI stream. Although last I heard they stopped using these because of a bug in the software which caused them to stay on screen after the user hit play.

There are no ads in the EPG or any of the search menus. There are yellow star promotions on the TiVo Central page, but you explicitly have to select them to actually see anything other then the title.

The only thing new that's come out is the new Product Watch application under Music, Photos, Products & More... menu. It's a special GUI that allows you to select products of interest and then it will download videos/advertisements which are related to that product to your TiVo. It is completely opt-in and can be stopped at any time.

Dan

[gonzotek]

The only "interactive advertising" are the little thumbs up adds that appear when you FF past a commercial which has special instructions embedded in the VBI stream. Although last I heard they stopped using these because of a bug in the software which caused them to stay on screen after the user hit play.

There are no ads in the EPG or any of the search menus. There are yellow star promotions on the TiVo Central page, but you explicitly have to select them to actually see anything other then the title.

The only thing new that's come out is the new Product Watch application under Music, Photos, Products & More... menu. It's a special GUI that allows you to select products of interest and then it will download videos/advertisements which are related to that product to your TiVo. It is completely opt-in and can be stopped at any time.

Dan
They're calling the Lexus configurator an 'interactive ad' too:
http://news.com.com/Building+a+Lexus+on+TiVo/2100-1024_3-6071179.html
TiVo said Thursday it has partnered with Lexus to offer that same type of experience via the broadband-connected Series2 TiVo model. A tag TiVo subscribers can click on appears throughout the entire commercial. Users who click on the tag can explore the product with the interactive application, while their show remains paused.

[cinetb]

Thanks for the information!
That is quite interesting.

[Dan203]

Oh yeah I forgot about the Lexus one. However it is completely opt-in, just like Product Watch, so it's not being forced on anyone.

Dan