Otaku, Cedric's weblog

TiVo and the importance of Now

In a comment to my TiVo entry, Noah makes the following observation:

You can circumvent most of the advertising by waiting for the DVD Season box set to be released on Netflix. Sure it puts you behind a few months (years!? :), but you are not only rewarded with no advertisements, but you also get bonus footage surrounding the show.

What you are dicussing is only a problem plagued by those who value entertainment based on its timeliness.

This is true but the "timeliness" factor is not just a fashionable whim shown by futile people, it's part of out society.  When a show comes out and the next day at work, you hear everybody talk about it, you want to be part of it.  This feeling goes even to the point where people watch shows they don't really enjoy that much just so they can be part of the discussions and/or controversies that will ensue at the water cooler or at their next dinner party.

From that perspective, the DVD approach doesn't fly.  It can also be expensive, and you have no guarantee that the said show will ever come out on DVD's, much less that NetFlix will ever include it in their catalogue.

One type of advertisement that TiVo cannot circumvent is product placement.

Product placement is annoying but not very disruptive.  I didn't mind too much seeing a huge Budweiser ad on Time Square as Spiderman was swinging on his web threads over Fifth avenue.  I would certainly mind if an animated banner popped every five minutes at the bottom of the screen to convince me to buy a car.  You think it will never happen in theaters?  I'm not so sure...

 

Posted by cedric at December 3, 2004 09:14 AM