So one may have thought they have seen the last of pop-up advertising after forking out on their last really effective anti pop-up tool, only to switch on their TiVo, start fast forwarding through the commercials on their recorded programme only to start getting pop-up advertising on their TV! Well, TiVo is aiming to find a way to become profitable and one way of doing this is to present its customers with pop-up advertising when ever a consumer starts skipping through the commercials.
The pop-up ads that appear takes up roughly 25% of the display and are based on one or more of the commercials the consumer fast forwards through. These are known as "icons" / fast forward tags according to TiVo. At the moment only TiVos using at least software version 7.1 is compatible with the advertising and the ads should only display when ever the consumer is actually fast forwarding through commercials.
As pretty much expected, the TiVo Community forum has many users upset with the new advertising system since as the pop-ups cover the centre of the picture, it makes it difficult to tell when the end of the commercials has reached. Some also say the ads are intrusive. However despite negative reactions from some users, TiVo is very likely to go ahead with its new pop-up advertising system. Currently there are some issues that need to be solved, such as some users reporting pop-ups appearing even when skipping through a section without commercials.
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The new billboard-style advertisements, which TiVo calls "Icons" or fast forward tags, come as the company faces increasing pressure to become profitable. Although subscriber numbers recently topped 3 million, most of TiVo's customers are coming from its now-in-doubt partnership with DirecTV rather than sales of standalone units. According to reports on the TiVo Community Forum, some users are encountering the ads when fast-forwarding or rewinding during a recorded or live program, not just commercials. TiVo representatives chalked up the occurrence to a bug, but many TiVo users are still fuming over what they characterized as an intrusive feature. Read the full source article here. |
It looks like no matter how matter how much one may hate pop-up advertising, it looks like advertising companies still believe that static pop-up ads, whether on billboards, pop-ups on the net and soon even on your TV is the most effective method of promoting their products.
In my opinion, I would not like to be bombarded with ads should I skip ads on my VCR. However, when a consumer has to pay a subscription to use their PVR (TiVo), I don't believe that they should also forced to see pop-ups also, particularly when they are paying a life time subscription to make use of their PVR.
Feel free to discuss and find out more about PVRs on our Stand Alone Devices & Home Entertainment Forum.
Source: BetaNews
