[IP] Why TiVo Owners Can't Shut Up

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>


[Note:  This item comes from reader Monty Solomon.  If Tivo is "God's
machine" according to Michael Powell, I guess that makes the ReplayTV
"Satan's machine" according to the Hollywood cartel.  As a ReplayTV
owner, I'd say that the Tivo is a pale shadow of the ReplayTV in
terms of features.  If it wasn't then you can be sure that the cartel
would have dragged it into court by now.  DLH]

At 21:45 -0700 4/19/03, Monty Solomon wrote:
>From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
>Subject: Why TiVo Owners Can't Shut Up
>Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 21:45:01 -0700
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>
>April 20, 2003
>
>Why TiVo Owners Can't Shut Up
>By WARREN ST. JOHN
>
>TO hear his friends tell it, Matt Smith is an easygoing guy. A
>recently engaged business consultant from Charlotte, N.C., Mr. Smith,
>31, is a casual fan of golf, Nascar and Wake Forest basketball. But
>there is one subject his friends are loath to bring up around him,
>for fear it will provoke one of his prolonged sermons on its myriad
>virtues: the television gadget TiVo.
>
>"I'd say he brings it up every time we're together," said Fran
>Radano, a college pal who has resisted Mr. Smith's efforts to convert
>him to TiVo. "There's usually someone in the group who's new to his
>preaching. It's highly annoying."
>
>Not since the PalmPilot debuted in 1996 has a new electronic
>contraption sparked a cultlike following and so many zealous
>proselytizers. Type the phrase "TiVo changed my life" into Google,
>and you will summon an afternoon's worth of reading (including the
>observation that there are "as many TiVo-praise Web sites out there
>as there are hairs on Robin Williams"). Michael Powell, the chairman
>of the Federal Communications Commission, once called TiVo "God's
>machine." TiVo has around 700,000 subscribers - a tiny fraction of
>American television viewers, 70 percent of whom have never even heard
>of TiVo, according to Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research
>in Cambridge, Mass. But, Mr. Bernoff said, TiVo's fans are a vocal
>minority.
>
>...
>
><http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/20/fashion/20TIVO.html>

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