TiVo Announces New Developer Tools

This announcement by Tivo has some pretty interesting stuff.

TiVo Video Publisher will allow video creators to provide downloadable content for TiVo. They talk about how content providers will be able to package and protect their video, but I hope that the amateurs won't be left out of the party. It would be great to be able to pull up my mom's vacation video as easily as a movie from the big studios. If they play their cards right they could make a killing off of long tail videos.

I totally agree. To have access to tons of content would be great. Both movies (hopefully this goes hand and hand with their Netflix partnership) and other content. What if I could download the latest JibJab bit to my TV or educational lessons or a friend's travel video? All sorts of options for this. It also completely bypasses the cable/satellite industry and moves on to TV over IP. It should also allow for micro-casting: creating content that has a very small audience that doesn't support the kind of numbers that would allow it to be broadcast on cable.

TiVo Multimedia Web Services API is a way for web publishers to put their content on the TiVo, the most exciting for me being support for RSS. Podcasting and videoblogging are starting to get some attention, the TiVo could become the platform of choice for personal media publishing.

I don't really understand this. RSS feeds are one thing, being able to interpret the data the RSS feed points at: HTML, JPEG, MPEG is quite another. Not clear if you will be able to browse HTML or download podcasts through this.

TiVo Service Integration is a way for 3rd parties to provide and charge for content on the TiVo. TiVo users would be able to "purchase/subscribe to" content using their remotes, TiVo would handle billing and customer support. This opens up a huge market for 3rd party developers to use the TiVo as a platform.

This reminds me in a way of how Docomo set themselves up. Allow 3rd parties to create content for your system and create a billing system that allows you both to profit.

This also makes the Tivo similar to Akimbo which downloads TV over IP but has limited content. The Tivo idea of hosting content and making it available to loads of people is even better.

Nice work Tivo. Depending on how you play this, it puts you right back in the game.

via PVRblog