We had a case study discussion on Tivo like 2 weeks back and Tivo is in news!!! What a coincidence.
"TiVo Fourth-Quarter Loss Narrows; Hardware Costs Drop"
Tivo has a great technology but its failing to capitalize on its technology. No idea whats making them go downwards and stay at the bottom. Offering a product that has capability to record and replay things, timer based recording, recording of serials based on preset keywords etc etc must have kept it way above in profits, but its always been in the red zone for a long time....even now its struggling...or one can put it as "Decade old but still struggling to stand up"
The problem they are encountering is that they are offering a setup which is powered by linux OS and things gets stored on the hard disk, now why must a customer pay monthly subscription fee if they are recording stuff on their set-top box? I think this may be a reason as to why its not growing as expected. Second thing is they arent capitalizing on the fact that subscribers skip ads. If i were the CEO of Tivo, i would have embedded ads as and when someone skips the add, i would add text based ads running at the bottom or a permanent ad display on the top left/right.
I would have gone ahead and signed up with advertisers like google ad sense or someone who is good at text or context ads. When the user stops and skips ads, these ads will be beamed on resumption. This way the user need not pay for the monthly subscription. Second thing is who will pay $x for one time cost of the box and $n recurring costs in addition to cable TV subscription costs, instead the best way is to push this technology to comcast or Time warner and charge them per customer...license the technology where subscribers could use video on demand, where u hit the repeat and u r choice ... then that particular program will stream in.
"TiVo Fourth-Quarter Loss Narrows; Hardware Costs Drop"
Tivo has a great technology but its failing to capitalize on its technology. No idea whats making them go downwards and stay at the bottom. Offering a product that has capability to record and replay things, timer based recording, recording of serials based on preset keywords etc etc must have kept it way above in profits, but its always been in the red zone for a long time....even now its struggling...or one can put it as "Decade old but still struggling to stand up"
The problem they are encountering is that they are offering a setup which is powered by linux OS and things gets stored on the hard disk, now why must a customer pay monthly subscription fee if they are recording stuff on their set-top box? I think this may be a reason as to why its not growing as expected. Second thing is they arent capitalizing on the fact that subscribers skip ads. If i were the CEO of Tivo, i would have embedded ads as and when someone skips the add, i would add text based ads running at the bottom or a permanent ad display on the top left/right.
I would have gone ahead and signed up with advertisers like google ad sense or someone who is good at text or context ads. When the user stops and skips ads, these ads will be beamed on resumption. This way the user need not pay for the monthly subscription. Second thing is who will pay $x for one time cost of the box and $n recurring costs in addition to cable TV subscription costs, instead the best way is to push this technology to comcast or Time warner and charge them per customer...license the technology where subscribers could use video on demand, where u hit the repeat and u r choice ... then that particular program will stream in.
- Local Context based ads or text ads sourced from google could supplement the revenue.
- Offering free set top boxes but clipping the ability to skip ads or embedding own ads.
- Local set top box must have 30 min recording facility and if users need more then paying for online storage space of say 10hrs or 24 hrs recording could be of variable pricing
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