A View on View :: Google-Tivo?

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Google-Tivo?

by Mark Evans on Mon 28 Nov 2005 06:42 PM EST | Permanent Link

With Tivo prepared to offer searchable, downloadable advertising, I wonder if it enhances or detracts from a Google acquisition? In a previous post, I thought a Tivo-Google marriage made sense because it would offer Google an easy and relatively inexpensive way to establish a foothold in the television market. Now, I'm not so sure. If Google is interested in this market, there are other routes it can take other than spending $500-million on Tivo. For example, it could sign deals with cablecos such as Comcast, which appears to be a strong Google ally, to offer AdSense/keyword advertising on a PVR device. Google could also strike deals with a DVR makers to produce a low-cost product with Google AdSense as a built-in feature. As Om Malik points out in the latest issue of Business 2.0, Google M&A strategy is focused on technology and people rather than full-fledged companies. This pretty much eliminates Tivo as a takeover candidate - not even taking into account the competition it's facing from cablecos, satellite TV and, increasingly, telcos. A more likley scenario is Google deals with a wide variety of service providers to create revenue-sharing advertising opportunities in whiche content and relevant-based advertising are seamlessly merged. So where does leave Tivo? I suspect it will carry on with its throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks strategy until something works.

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Re: Google-Tivo?

by Stuart MacDonald on Mon 28 Nov 2005 07:33 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

Regardless of what this means for a TIVO-GOOG matchup (and I tend to agree that it is not very likely, though "AdSense for TV" would be jaw dropping for advertisers), the fact that some big US ad agency roll-ups are piloting something with TIVO speaks to the tectonic shake-up building in traditional media. Seems like some of the old-school mass media types might be starting to pull their heads out of the sand. Nice to see them at least trying to play with new models; they simply have to start getting ready to offer advertisers brand building alternatives or they will see their businesses shrink violently (same for traditional broadcasters, clearly).

That said, TiVo, though addictive, handy and cool, is far from ubiquitous. Only when TiVo-like functionality lives in every machine as it leaves the TV factory or they start giving the boxes away will this type of thing really move the ad game needle. In the meantime, as you say, it remains spaghetti on a wall. Too bad.

Of course, a GOOG move to do "AdSense for TV" directly with cable players, offering some kind of broadband/cable bundle that would include a PVR-cum-AdSense local box of some sort for free if you agree to accept tailored ads...

:)

- Stuart

Re: Google-Tivo?

by Mathew on Mon 28 Nov 2005 07:54 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

I think you're right to be skeptical about a Google takeover of TiVo, Mark. Not only does it not fit with their strategy, but TiVo offers very little that is in any way unique or compellingly different from what Google could create themselves with a non-proprietary partner or partners -- the same argument that I think made a takeover of Skype unlikely, especially at the kind of price eBay paid.

Re: Re: Google-Tivo?

by Mark Evans on Mon 28 Nov 2005 08:40 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

the intriguing part is google can do anything it wants but many of its strategies are still in the beta or to-be-determined mode. only larry and sergey know and they're not telling anyone..yet.

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\n"; #File retrieval failed - exiting function pass back old values. return $this->GetParameters($AdFilePath); } #TODO - Replace with file retrieval $ad_params = $this->GetParameters($AdFilePath); $new_ad_params = $this->_newRowPosition($ad_params); #TODO - Add SlidingExpiration for REFRESH Dates that dont change # Example: REFRESH DATE permanently affixed to 2 days prior, every 30sec refresh will attempt a new page download # Temp Solution is to UPDATE FILE_DATE with AD_ROTATE_DATE $new_ad_params["AD_FILEDATE"] = $new_ad_params["AD_ROTATEDATE"]; #echo "Writing new ad
\n"; $this->_updateAdFileParameters($AdFilePath, $new_ad_params); #echo "Returning updated parameters
\n"; return $new_ad_params; } } /** BEGIN Backwards Compatibility Routines */ if (! function_exists('array_combine')) { function array_combine($keys, $values) { foreach($keys as $key) $out[$key] = array_shift($values); return $out; } } if (!function_exists('fputcsv')) { function fputcsv($filePointer, $dataArray, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { // Write a line to a file // $filePointer = the file resource to write to // $dataArray = the data to write out // $delimeter = the field separator // Build the string $string = ""; // No leading delimiter $writeDelimiter = FALSE; foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) { // Replaces a double quote with two double quotes $dataElement=str_replace("\"", "\"\"", $dataElement); // Adds a delimiter before each field (except the first) if($writeDelimiter) $string .= $delimiter; // Encloses each field with $enclosure and adds it to the string $string .= $enclosure . $dataElement . $enclosure; // Delimiters are used every time except the first. $writeDelimiter = TRUE; } // end foreach($dataArray as $dataElement) // Append new line $string .= "\n"; // Write the string to the file return fwrite($filePointer,$string); } } if (!function_exists('fgetcsv')) { #TODO - Remove or ??? #Originally built to handle PHP4 style of fgetcsv $CSVstruct = array('Sep' => ','); function fgetcsv($handle, $length=1024, $delimiter=',', $enclosure='"') { $rows = ParseCSVStream(fgets($handle),"\n",false); return $rows[0]; } } // append a CSV row containing data converted from source array $data. Actual conversion is done by ExCSVRowWalker() function AppendCSVRow($data) { global $CSVstruct; array_walk($data,'ExCSVRowWalker'.($CSVstruct['OutEOL']=="\n"?'N':'')); $CSVstruct['File'] .= implode($CSVstruct['Sep'],$data).$CSVstruct['OutEOL']; } // returns an array of rows (each row being an array of columns) with parsed data. Returns false when conversion fails. Auto-detects Win/Mac/*nix newline characters, which are converted all to the sequence specified (defaults to $CSVstruct['OutEOL']) for your convenience. function ParseCSVStream($data, $newline="\n", $associative=true) { global $CSVstruct; $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\r","\n",str_replace("\r\n","\n",$data)); if ($newline!="\n") $CSVstruct['File'] = str_replace("\n",$newline,$CSVstruct['File']); $CSVstruct['OutEOL'] = $newline; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = 0; $CSVstruct['Error'] = false; $CSVstruct['EOF'] = false; $res = array(); if ($associative) { $titles = ParseCSVRow(); while (($row = ParseCSVRow())!==false) { $newa = array(); //possible optimization: might use array_combine() - requires PHP 5 for ($col = 0; $col0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',str_replace($CSVstruct['OutEOL'],"\n",$item)).'"'; } function ExCSVRowWalkerN(&$item) { if (!is_numeric($item)&&(strlen($item)>0)) $item = '"'.str_replace('"','""',$item).'"'; } // read next line from buffer. function RowInput() { global $CSVstruct; if ($CSVstruct['EOF']) { return ""; } else { $pos = strpos($CSVstruct['File'], $CSVstruct['OutEOL'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); if ($pos===false) { $CSVstruct['EOF'] = true; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$CSVstruct['Seek']); } else { $pos1 = $CSVstruct['Seek']; $CSVstruct['Seek'] = $pos+1; return substr($CSVstruct['File'],$pos1,$pos-$pos1); }; }; } /** Initialize ad_network variable */ $ad_logic = new ad_logic($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); $ad_network = $ad_logic->ad_network($PATH_TO_AD_FILE); ?>