TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator and a leader in advertising solutions and television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced that it plans to offer the first television-based advertising search solution in Spring 2006. Leveraging TiVo’s television search capabilities that enhance the TV viewing experience, the new product will deliver relevant, targeted advertising to subscribers that want to view particular advertising categories.
Back when TiVo announced their deal with Comcast, one of the things announced was a new advertising platform. Well, it looks like they’re making progress on the Comcast work – and this is that platform, since it was developed in conjunction with Comcast, among others. From what I’ve read, I like the sound of this. Basically giving users access to targeted advertisements, in the same way Google Adwords works online really, in an unobtrusive way. If you want to see offers in a certain category, you can find them. If you don’t want to look, you don’t have to. So there is no reason for folks who don’t like ads to complain.
This also makes TiVo an even more attractive option for new partners, since I’m sure there is some kind of revenue sharing involved with the advertising. I doubt it is a coincidence that this was announced the day before their quarterly earnings conference call. 
