Continuing To Tweak – And Don’t Forget To Update Your RSS Feeds

Posted on Monday, March 24, 2008 by MegaZone

Since the big name change on Saturday I’ve been continuing to make a few tweaks. I was uncertain about the intense blue I’d used for the new link color, and I received some feedback that it was just unreadable on some displays because it over-saturated them. (It was full blue: #0000ff.) So I changed the links to a ‘softer’ blue shade which does seem to be a lot easier on the eyes – and displays. One thing I don’t plan to change is the black background – I really like black backgrounds. I use green-on-black for all my terminals, I set my feed readers to use green-on-black, etc. I find it doesn’t strain my eyes like black-on-white does. But I think the new green (which is full green #00ff00), which is the same green most terminals use, is a lot more readable than the old ‘TiVo green’, which didn’t contrast as well. And I’ve received some feedback already that it is more readable for others.

Still, I know some people really don’t like black backgrounds, so I’m going to try to bump the implementation of user-selectable styles to the top of my list. It has been on there for a while now, and I know what I need to do, it has just been a matter of finding time. So I hope to do that for you soon.

I know some of the URLs still have ‘TiVo’ in them. Fixing that is a lower priority, since that’s minor and it also means I’ll need to setup redirection for any URLs I change, lest I break old links. I will get to it. A higher priority is finding any lingering links on the site that still point to tivolovers.com, as well as updating content to use the new name. If you spot any issues on the site, you can comment on this post or contact me directly.

Now, as for RSS feeds. Fortunately, going by the FeedBurner stats, it looks like a lot of people automatically picked up the new feed. But there are still many people pointing to the old feed. If the previous post in your feed is ‘DVR Ad-Skipping Reduces Sales Of Up To 20% Of Brands‘, then you’re still getting the full feed. If the previous post in your feed is ‘Design A New Logo For Gizmo Lovers & Win A TiVo HD‘, then you are not getting the full feed – you’re just getting the site updates.

You are probably subscribed to http://feeds.feedburner.com/tivolovers, which is now deprecated. You should unsubscribe from that feed and subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/gizmolovers or simply http://www.gizmolovers.com/feed/ – which redirects to the same thing. (The latter is probably safer, since I can redirect that as needed in the future.) If you’re subscribed to http://www.tivolovers.com/feed/ that still works (since it redirects to http://www.gizmolovers.com/feed/), but you may want to update at some point just to be safe.

Oh, and I made a small edit to the create a new logo contest post. Check that out if you’re thinking of entering.

Posted in Site Updates | Tagged | Leave a comment

DVR Ad-Skipping Reduces Sales Of Up To 20% Of Brands

Posted on Monday, March 24, 2008 by MegaZone

According to Advertising Age the results of over three years of research by Information Resources Inc. into DVR and non-DVR households shows that DVR households purchase new packaged goods products 5% less often than non-DVR households amongst IRI’s ‘Pacesetting’ brands and that roughly 20% of all brands showed a statistically significant reduction in volume. A handful of brands actually saw a slight sales increase in DVR households, but it wasn’t statistically significant. But it is an indication that not all brands will necessarily suffer from DVR ad-skipping.

The research also shows that moving ad money away from TV can help mitigate the impact of DVRs. The brands that spend 20% of more of their media budgets outside of TV showed no significant drop in DVR households. The study also provided some insight into DVR users’ habits:

Overall, IRI panelists watched 42% of the programming on CBS time-shifted, compared to only 10% on the Food Network and 18% on Lifetime. While 34% of programming originally airing on Fridays was time-shifted, only 15% of Sunday shows were.

As network executives have suspected, the study showed people were far less likely to fast-forward through network promos than ads– indicating that creative appeal does make a difference. More than 60% of viewers, for example, watched network promos in the first pod position at normal speed vs. fewer than 45% who watched other ads.

There is some more interesting information in the article.

Posted in DVR, TiVo | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Design A New Logo For Gizmo Lovers & Win A TiVo HD

Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2008 by MegaZone

As I said in my post announcing the name change for the site, the site needs a new logo but I’m hopeless with graphics.

So, how to solve this problem? Have a contest! Whomever creates the image that is selected to be the new logo for the site wins a TiVo HD. And if you already have a TiVo HD, or just don’t want one, you can pick from the other available rewards for a total of 35,000 points. (If you already have a TiVo HD, perhaps the My DVR Expander and a Glo remote. I know that’s 36,000 points, that’s OK.)

Old TiVo Lovers logo

The current site logo, seen at the right, was created by reader ‘artemis908′ back in August of 2006, originally as an icon for the ‘tivolovers’ LJ community. I’d originally created the little site icon, what you see in the browser location bar, as a kind of prototype concept: Site icon

I do like the heart motif as it goes with the ‘Lovers’ aspect of the site. I really do like the current site logo, but the TiVo guy just has to go as part of the overhaul. So something similar might be nice – but I don’t want to limit any artists. You never know what someone will think of that just feels right. ‘I’ll know it when I see it.’

I’m no lawyer, nor can I really afford one, so I’ll just say that whichever design wins would become the property of the site, which is effectively myself as this is a one-man operation. The design would need to work on the site, the current logo is 100×100 pixels – though the new one could vary within reason. I’d also need a simplified site icon (favicon.ico) version. As well as the source files so it could be manipulated for use on business cards, etc. It would have to work on the black background of the site, but the design (or variants thereof) should also work on a white background – as any business card would probably be white, and I intend to offer users the ability to use alternate color schemes on the site. (It is on my ‘To Do’ list.) If you’re so inclined you’d of course be free to include the logo in any portfolio of your work.

You can submit designs via comments on this post. Or you can contact me directly if you prefer, or if you have any questions you want to ask. If you want to bounce iterations off me before posting the submission, so as to not give away any ideas during development, that’s fine.

I’ll set midnight EST, Friday March 28. 2008 as the deadline for submissions – that’s the end of this week. Though if there is enough call to extend the deadline, I would certainly consider doing so.

Once the submissions are in I may post the candidates for review and comment. But in the end, it’ll be my decision – for better or for worse. My site, my choice. :-) If I’m not happy with it it’ll just bug me forever.

Thank you, and good luck to any who enter!

EDIT: Of course, I woke up this morning and had a blinding flash of the obvious. The current site name at the top of the pages ‘Gizmo Lovers’ with the rainbow colored ‘Gizmo’ was just me riffing on the old ‘TiVo’ in the four TiVo colors, for lack of something better to do. It occurs to me that the design of the logo could be carried over into a new graphic site banner for the name, instead of the plain CSS-styled text used today. So if you want to put together a simple name graphic to go with the logo, I wouldn’t object. :-)
END EDIT

I have had some thoughts about the design. But you may not want to read them if you’re the sort who likes to come up with things from a blank slate. Stop now if that’s the case.
Continue reading →

Posted in Site Updates, TiVo | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

A Brief History Of Failed Video Media Formats

Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2008 by MegaZone

HD DVD is only the latest video media format to land on the junk heap of history. Most of you reading probably know about Betamax, since it has entered the popular lexicon as a synonym for ‘failed format’. But Betamax and HD DVD are hardly alone, and Popular Mechanics has a fun article which covers ten failed video media formats. Read the article and see how many of the formats you were already familiar with. And how many of them did you own?

My answers below.
Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray/HD DVD, General Tech | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Roxio Looking For Help From TiVo Users

Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2008 by MegaZone

One of the open questions with Roxio Toast 9 is if it solved the outstanding issues with TiVoToGo experienced by users of Toast 8. Well, Roxio responded to Dave Zatz at Zatz Not Funny via a comment:

Roxio PR

We did indeed believe that we had addressed all the sync issues in Toast 9 and were planning to issue an update for Toast 8 customers. Post launch, we have become aware that some problems persist. As a result, we are going through the process of acquiring the problematic files and working to resolve any remaining issues. We fully intend to continue to work through all the issues and update Toast 9 and Toast 8 customers as required. We are asking for Toast 9 customers’ assistance. If a Toast 9 customer has experienced sync issues, we ask that they email TivoFiles@roxio.com, as we would like to acquire and test the problematic file.

Thank you.

So it sounds like Toast 9 has improved things, but not completely resolved them. If you have Toast 9 and are experiencing trouble, you have a chance to help get things fixed.

And it is nice to hear that Roxio intends to issue a fix for Toast 8 users as well, so they won’t be forced to upgrade to Toast 9 just to get the fix.

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