In case you haven’t heard, Netflix is proudly trumpeting the arrival of banner ads. While this might please stock holders, I’m not sure how much value advertising clutter affords the typical customer. In fact, on my 1024×768 laptop the new banner ad for Sony’s Monster House combined with the Netflix Father’s Day promotion fills nearly 50% of Firefox with crap.

Personally, I find this development at odds with CEO Reed Hastings’s recent comment to Business Week: “We think the differentiator will be this incredible Web site.” Plastering Netflix.com with banner ads is not incredible and certainly doesn’t differentiate you. Actually, it does differentiate you from most pay services which are banner-free — web advertising has largely been the domain of free online services (such as yours truly).

With that in mind, I wrote Netflix customer service hoping to broker a deal. I told them as a paying customer, I’d rather not see third-party advertising. Assuming they would choose Sony’s deep pockets over my relatively shallow ones, I also offered a compromise of having Netflix lower my monthly fee by 25 cents for every banner ad I’m served. Customer service rep Crystal responded, “We understand your concerns with advertisements on the Netflix site. These advertisements are designed to enhance customer experience with content that appeals to our members’ movie tastes and cannot be removed from your individual site experience.” Sadly, she didn’t respond to my almost-revolutionary advertising model.

At the end of the day, this isn’t a huge deal (more like a slightly disturbing, though not entirely unexpected, development)… However, someone should call them on it and I nominated myself.

Google has developed a system that uses a PC microphone to eavesdrop on a co-located television. “Big Brother” determines what you’re watching to present relevant web information, social applications, and more targeted advertising… that you can’t quite see from the couch, anyway. Monitoring TV viewing habits actually seems less invasive than archiving search data (in the event of any DOJ subpoenas) as long as you use pseudonyms around the house.

Google says: We showed how to sample the ambient sound emitted from a TV and automatically determine what is being watched from a small signature of the sound — all with complete privacy and minuscule effort. The system could keep up with users while they channel surf, presenting them with a real-time forum about a live political debate one minute and an ad-hoc chat room for a sporting event in the next. And, all of this would be done without users ever having to type or to even know the name of the program or channel being viewed.

(Thanks, Todd B!)

Never enough time…

• Hands-on with Bose Quiet Comfort 3 noise-cancelling headphones. (Gizmodo)
• Ericsson enters IPTV battle. (CNET)
• Google video player released for Mac. (TUAW)
• Major League Baseball bullies Sling Media. (Gear Log)
• ABC backs off on DVR ratings fight. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Beginning next month, broadband-connected Series2 TiVo units will be able to subscribe to multiple new downloadable web and television video offerings in addition to the current CNET and Rocketboom services. I’m envisioning TiVoCast will be housed in a HME subscription application, similar to the recently launched ProductWatch.

Interestingly, no money is changing hands (yet) between TiVo and the content providers who will advertise their brands while selling commercials. In return TiVo continues to differentiate themselves from generic DVRs while refining the service and looking to partner with bigger fish. You know… the kind of fish that can provide movies on demand. As with MovieBeam, I’m willing to pay for true VOD distinct from a cable or satellite provider.

(I’m surprised that Brightcove isn’t referenced…)

TiVo Inc., the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVR), today announced the launch of TiVoCast(TM), a revolutionary new service which will deliver broadband video directly to the television sets of TiVo subscribers. The TiVoCast service turns Web video into television by bringing top broadband content now only available on the PC to the TV set.

“The range and quality of broadband video is exploding on the Web, but it’s not TV until it is on the TV,” said Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo. “With the TiVoCast service, we are once again transforming the television experience by bringing the rapidly expanding array of video content on the Internet into the living room.”

“Television is still the preferred platform for watching video. The TiVoCast service captures mainstream and specialty-based content on the Web, delivering programming that is not otherwise available through the TV today and providing a wide variety of choice that will be of interest to all segments of the TV audience,” said Tara Maitra, TiVo’s Vice President and General Manager, Programming. “The TiVoCast service provides niche networks and broadband content suppliers, for which the economics of television distribution might not make sense, a way to connect with audiences in the living room via their favorite medium for watching video, TV and TiVo.”

As part of the launch, TiVo announced that it has reached new agreements with leading video content providers including the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), The New York Times, Heavy, iVillage and CNET among others. The broadband video content will include:

(more…)

Never enough time…

• Eirik Solheim ponders the future of TV distribution. (eirikso)
• Constantine to be first HD-DVD with In-Movie Experience features. (HD Beat)
• Digital content goes outside the box. (Mercury News)
• Brightcove to add media formats. (Brightcove)
• TV advertising’s DVR challenge. (CNET)

Never enough time…

• Download your TV; the current options. (TechCrunch)
• ABC.com users watch more than two million streams. (PVRBlog)
• TV networks blissfully ignore TiVo problem. (CNN Money)
• Windows Vista requires analog tuner. (jkOnTheRun)
• Paramount embraces blogosphere. (Technorati)

Enrollment and distribution has begun for folks interested in receiving a weekly CNET tech news segment, as announced last month. The service is being offered to both Cox cable customers, and in this case, broadband-enabled TiVo units. CNET had also announced their intention to include advertising, partnering with Best Buy as a charter sponsor. The inaugural 15 minute episode took slightly over an hour to trickle down and contains E3 footage from the floor… without any Best Buy references.

I find this only mildly interesting (where’s my VOD?), but I took Thomas Hawk’s advice and bought a tripod — so consider this a photographic test.