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Monday, November 29, 2004

The Future of TiVo

When not worrying about global warming and nuclear catastrophe, I worry about what I'm going to do if TiVo goes under (actually, I probably spend more time worrying about that than the other two put together). But, as Mark Evanier says, the demise of the company doesn't mean the demise of the technology, just that those of us who laid out the $299 for a TiVo "lifetime subscription" rather than monthly fees will probably end up paying those fees to someone else:

TiVo technicians have quietly leaked word to the electronics community that if they crash and burn, the company will release the source codes that will make it easy for someone else to offer a TiVo Data Subscription Service.

TiVo in some ways reminds me of Apple, an innovative company that never was able to capitalize on its innovation... until the iPod, at least.

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