I love my TiVo. The Fall 2007 Service Update that loaded the other day gave the grand old UI a New Web makeover, which I really appreciated. In typical New Web style, there are shadows and gradients, softer and darker colors, etc.
As with the NFL, TiVo is embracing the stylings of Web 2.0, which for the most part, look better than Web 1.0 did. I got a lecture in comments on my NFL post about how not 2.0 the league is. To be clear, I’m talking about looks only. As a consumer, I am happy to see these brands modernizing their images.
Even the wife noticed, when I pointed the shiny new UI on TiVo. She said “the check marks look different”. Notice, she didn’t say “better”, so maybe it’s just me, but from using consumer-sites with New Web UIs all day long, I notice this stuff. The TiVo website also have more shadows and icons too, so I guess it was a 2.0 look/feel overhaul.
TiVo is mentioned in Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 treatise, in the “Software Above the Level of a Single Device” section because it uses the web as a platform, but isn’t a web app. One of my favorite Interweb-Real World features is Amazon Unbox, which allows me to rent or buy a movie at Amazon and have it pushed to my TiVo. They do $0.99 rentals on weekends for new releases, which is well under my price point, and Fox has free downloads of its Fall series premiers available for download.
Sometimes the download isn’t as fast as my wife would like. She’s one of those impatient users, the Interwebs cannot ever be fast enough. She has a point. Even so, once the rental arrives, I have it for 30 days. Once we start watching, we have 24 hours to finish. It’s a sweet deal, nothing to return or mail. The wave of the future. I wish they had more movies, but that was what I wished 11 years ago when I bought my first DVD player.
Anyway, this started as props to TiVo for updating their UI, but I just love that little thing so much that I had to digress. Kudos to TiVo.
