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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