Creating Buzz

TIVO has applied for a patent to use RFID along with TIVO. This will allow TIVO to know who is watching and change the settings to fit that user. In the patent application TIVO talks about a user going to a hotel and the hotels TIVO recognizing the user from the RFID.

Now my main gripe with TIVO has always been that their recommendations for what they think I want to watch always suck. Which I can't blame them for sucking because I TIVO shows, my fiance TIVOs shows and so does my brother. So this creates a mishmash of Oprahs, football, the history of Rome and basically a bunch of shows not connected in any manor. The TIVO does not know that 3 people are deciding what to record. The RFID system can easily fix this issue. So TIVO would be able to know who is specifically watching TV and make recommendations for each person.

The system has other benefits like parental controls when little Jonny is in charge of the clicker. My only question is where will the RFID chip be on the user. My wallet, my shoe, my underwear. I am guessing your underwear is the best place because you should always be wearing them. But this is not practical.

Lastly I have been on a recent quest to form the end all and be all recommendation website. The information TIVO would receive from the RFID system would help create very specific and useful recommendations on what to watch. Now if this information is combined with the data Amazon has for you, combined with the data from your credit card company (I know privacy issue but stay with me) combined with the DVDs and CDs you already own. A recommendation system so precise and accurate could be created for an individual. The commercials you see would be specific for you, the TIVO recommendations would be good, you could get emails about sales at stores you like or coupons for products you like, when a new CD or DVD comes out that you would like you would know, when a concert is coming to town that you would like you would know etc... The recommendation applications are endless but to be great recommendations a large amount of data about the individual would be needed. This is post is going off track so I will write more later about the recommendation mega site.
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