So some serious TiVo watchers have responded to the “How to Save TiVo” idea I floated a couple of days ago. The idea, is not as preposterous as it may seem, even though I admit I wrote it too fast. Matt over at PVRBlog has some better ideas and suggestions and a very different point of view. However I want to bring the attention back to the big picture here: TiVo should leverage the loyal users into a small profitable business. Matt suggests that Apple and BMW are advertising a lot. Well before they did it, they made money.

Apple, retrenched, and despite ceding market share, became profitable. TiVo needs to do exactly that. Instead of spending dollars on advertising, TiVo can make the TiVo-experience unbeatable. I think the TiVoted, who are part of the digital-set don’t need to see expensive TiVo ads on television, and the company can do a good job of marketing mostly online. It is the medium which TiVo uses to spread its message. As an aside, even serial killing father-and-son team in a USA TV movie, say did you TiVo that show…. well they have the mindshare. Time to push the platform to match the mindshare. Also read Alex Rowland’s comment.