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TiVo Said Talking Deal With Web Search Kings
By: Charles Farrar
Digital video recording service TiVo is said to be talking to search
kings Google and Yahoo about a potential deal‹one that could provide an
additional avenue for the exposure of adult entertainment. If the joint
venture comes to fruition, it could open the door to the possibility
of consumers being able to search the Web for videos and playing them on
their TV sets.
³I guess it would come down to ease and functionality,² says Fabian
Citraro, who runs the adult television service XTV, about possibly
playing your Web-found clips or films on your TV set. ³There are major
players that could come in and make it interesting. But we¹ll see how
fast people would take to it; there¹s only 3 million people using TiVo
now.²
Citraro also suggested that how much adult material would be allowed
to pass through such an option might depend on how much pressure is
brought to bear by critics or activists against adult material.
³Is there going to be heat from the certain groups who¹d say, ŒLook,
TiVo and Google or whoever are making it easier for my kid to search
porn?¹² he asks. ³Yahoo had to pull their porn ads, Google backed out
of [making room for amateur adult] video on their service. Just because
TiVo and Google might hook up later, it doesn¹t mean porn is going to
be easily accessible, whereas with someone like [XTV], we¹re a private
network, and once you have our box, you can have a limitless supply of
adult material.²
Published reports indicate that the option of downloading video from
the Web and playing it on your television set is just one idea TiVo
might kick around with the search engines, with other possibilities
believed to include equity investing in TiVo by the search engines or
even an outright acquisition of the digital video recording service.
None of the three players is commenting publicly about any discussions
involving TiVo for now, according to published reports. But those
reports also suggested any deal between TiVo and a major Web searcher
would mean expansion opportunities for both sides, considering TiVo¹s
long-familiar ambition of becoming television¹s Google and Google and
Yahoo¹s recent heavy investment in video services.
/news.com.com/TiVo+courts+search+giants/2100-1041_3-5673225.html
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