Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection

They say that a good captain will go down with their ship, but what can you say about the guy who climbs on-board after the ship has begun taking on water? Over the last few years, Blockbuster Video has hit iceberg after iceberg and while they’ve avoided capsizing this long, a $300 million looming debt payment may be the final torpedo that sinks the historic brand. Over the last few months, Blockbuster has seen board members flee like rats off of a sinking ship, but at least one shareholder wants to fight to save the company.

Last week, Greg Meyer fired the first shot in a proxy war by submitting paperwork to have his name considered for a position on Blockbuster’s board of directors. To win, he’ll need to take on board of director incumbent, James Crystal. In the proxy filing, Meyer makes a strong case that he is the more qualified candidate for the position.

-In 2001 Meyer started a DVD kiosk business at a time when most thought the idea was crazy. Eventually, DVDXpress was sold to Coinstar and later merged with Redbox. Mr. Crystal on the other hand has spent his career running an insurance company and doesn’t have any DVD industry experience.

-Over the last year, Meyer has put his own money on the line by purchasing over 600,000 Blockbuster shares on the open market, Crystal on the other hand has less than $50,000 worth of Blockbuster’s stock and only because it was given to him for serving on the board of directors.

-While Crystal’s full time job is his insurance business, he also serves on 7 other boards for various insurance companies. Meyer’s only other board position is with a non-profit that uses movies to help reach young kids.

-Perhaps most damaging of all though, is the related transaction between Mr. Crystal and Blockbuster. Last October, Blockbuster made Frank Crystal & Company their exclusive insurance broker for the company. At the same time, Mr. Crystal, who sits on the compensation committee, was helping to award over $1.5 million in bonuses to Blockbuster executives in a year where Blockbuster lost over a half a billion dollars. Given that Blockbuster CEO James Keyes was awarded $400,000 of that bonus, perhaps it isn’t all that surprising to see him come out against Meyer’s nomination.

In a press release, Keyes rejected the idea of adding Meyer to the board and wrote,

“While we have an appreciation for Mr. Gregory Meyer’s investment and interest in the company, those are not sufficient reasons for his candidacy for the board. We are disappointed Mr. Meyer is pursuing a costly and disruptive proxy contest. A proxy contest can only serve as a distraction to the company when attention and resources would be better used in creating value for stakeholders by implementing our strategic plan. We assure all of our constituencies that we remain committed, as always, to doing what is right for our shareholders, debt holders, employees, and customers,”

Distraction or not, it’s understandable that Blockbuster’s shareholders would be disappointed in the current board of directors. Since bringing on Keyes, Blockbuster has seen their stock fall from $4.46 to $0.29 per share. During that time, they’ve seen Netflix and Redbox take market share from them, while they were concentrating on trying to figure out a way to save Circuit City from bankruptcy. Instead of focusing on offering an all you can eat streaming service, Blockbuster spent their operating income on redesigning their stores. Meanwhile, they’ve continued to lose the confidence of both the stock and bond market.

Given that there aren’t many people who’d be willing to run into a burning building in order to save a video store, I reached out to Mr. Meyers to help better understand what he hopes to accomplish with his proxy run. Below is a transcript from our interview.

Davis: I guess the biggest question on my mind is that with Blockbuster clearly hurting pretty bad right now, why you would even want to get involved with the company. You’ve already proven that you can build a DVD business from scratch, what is it about the challenge of turning the company around that appeals to you, instead of using your time and capital to create another new business?

Meyer: When our team was building the DVDXpress business early on, we spent years struggling to make customers aware of the fact that it was possible to rent DVDs from a kiosk and encouraging them to do so. Blockbuster was such a dominant force at the time that we felt like we were constantly swimming upstream against this 900lb gorilla.

Fast forward to today and the tables have turned so that many people say ‘Why would I ever go to Blockbuster?’ I think the pendulum has swung too far and believe there is an enormous amount of intrinsic value within Blockbuster that can be realized with proper guidance and forward-thinking strategic insight. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, everyone knows that Blockbuster means movies, and having such widespread brand awareness is extremely valuable.

Davis: Having served on the front lines of the bond market, what insights does this give you into how the banks and hedge funds might be thinking about Blockbuster’s debt right now? Specifically, what sorts of things do you think that they’d like to see in order to be amenable to restructuring overtures?

Meyer: The perception in the market is that Blockbuster’s subordinated notes will be equitized at the expense of shareholders. I believe there are some intelligent steps that management can take to avoid this outcome, which would obviously be advantageous for shareholders- and I have recently apprised them of one such structure. The Company and its legal and financial advisors need to be thinking about creative solutions to bring the company back to health and not take the easy way out by converting sub debt
to equity unnecessarily. My impression is that the Company and its advisors are looking at this as a zero sum game instead of trying to figure out how to creatively increase the size of the pie for all constituents, which I think is doable. That’s why I think it’s so important to have at least one shareholder advocate on the board.

Davis: You also mentioned in your filing that you’d like to pursue a solution that results in the lowest possible dilution, if any, of shareholders. Given the burden of having to service almost a billion dollars worth of debt, can Blockbuster be competitive in an industry whose competition is cutthroat right now? Can you share any thoughts on your rescue plan for Blockbuster and what it might take to save the company?

Meyer: Blockbuster has some incredibly valuable assets and competitive advantages. In addition to huge brand awareness, the Company has very strong relationships with the Hollywood studios. These studio relationships have become more apparent in the last few months with the Warner, Fox, and Sony supply deals providing Blockbuster with day-and-date availability of new release titles vs. the 28-day delay for other channels. This is a huge advantage relative to Netflix and kiosks competitors, and it’s one that Blockbuster has never had in the past. I think the company has done a reasonable job of communicating this advantage to customers with the recent release of ‘The Blindside’ and ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

For now, having closed many of its underperforming stores already and amid a significant reduction in overall brick-and-mortar industry capacity, Blockbuster’s physical stores represent a true asset if managed properly that can generate significant cash flow for years to come and act as a bridge to its various future distribution channels rather than an impediment.

Davis: Blockbuster released a press release urging shareholders to reject your advances, saying that they were disappointed that you were pursuing a “costly and disruptive proxy contest” at a time when their efforts should be focused on executing their existing turnaround plan. Do you feel that it’s appropriate for Blockbuster management to publicly respond this way and do you have any concerns that your actions could have any negative consequences by trying to shake up the status quo?

Meyer: The reality is that Blockbuster’s management is making the decision to perpetuate a proxy contest. I find it unconscionable that management would be willing to waste shareholders money to fight a full blown proxy contest to keep a qualified, industry relevant and highly motivated individual off the Board. If James W. Crystal is as valuable as James W. Keyes suggests then I would be happy to serve constructively with him on the board. This does not have to be mutually exclusive. Keep in mind the size of the board has shrunk from 9 to 7 over the past few months due to several departures, so having both of us as directors would actually return the board to a more normal size. But this is a decision that Jim Keyes and the Board has to make as it is out of my hands.

Davis: Beyond the finance side of the equation, is there anything that you feel Blockbuster should be doing to make their product more relevant to consumers?

Meyer: Yes, I think the value proposition to customers can be significantly improved. Look at the smart things that smaller brick-and-mortar video competitors like Family Video (rental) and MovieStop (retail) are doing. These companies have been growing rapidly over the past several years as they’ve figured out how to remain relevant with consumers despite growing competition from Netflix and the kiosk operators. These companies offer a variety of real services to their customers. As one small example, both of these chains offer a ‘Notification Service’ by which they will call or email their customers when a movie or game becomes available for rental or sale, either new or used. This builds goodwill and drives customer traffic. Sometimes a lot of small improvements at the margin add up to a much better experience.

And of course there are many innovative steps the company can take to serve customers digitally, some of which they’ve started to take with Blockbuster On Demand. The combination of near ubiquitous brand awareness and strong studio relationships has the potential to make Blockbuster a dominant player in digital delivery going forward, but this path needs to be navigated intelligently to ensure success.

Davis: Finally, Carl Ichan previously spent a lot of time and money trying to win board seats and concessions from Blockbuster management. While he ultimately won, his actions haven’t seemed to help the company all that much. Even if you were to win a seat, do you think that you’d have enough influence to create the kind of change that Blockbuster needs in order to save their business?

Meyer: All I can ask for is the opportunity to have my informed opinions heard at the board level and hope that the other directors would act in a rational and objective manner in the best interests of the shareholders.

Since I’m not a Blockbuster shareholder, my vote won’t count in this contest, but I am interested in what other shareholders think, so feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Will you be voting for Meyer? For Crystal or do you plan to kick all the bums out? While fighting a proxy war can be a distraction and could potentially interfere with Blockbuster’s efforts to restructure their debt, it can also bring hope to a weary shareholder base at a time when things seem hopeless. I don’t think that Meyer can turn the company around single handedly, but as Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe once wrote, “in all things it’s better to hope than to despair.”

Update – In an open letter to shareholders, Meyer calls out James Keyes for perpetuating the proxy contest and reveals that he encouraged Blockbuster to adopt DVD kiosk technology over five years ago. At that time he also pointed out that Blockbuster could have saved $140 million per year by cutting their store hours by three hours per day.

Posted on April 12th, 2010 by Davis
Filed under: DVDs, Kiosks, SA, VOD | 8 Comments »

I’ve never had any trouble forming an opinion of my own, but often times I wonder how the rest of the world sees things. Anyone who has ever spent time with me can tell you that I tend to ask a lot of random questions that don’t really have any significant meaning behind them. This could range from asking someone what they think the area code in Detroit is or it could be something deeper like would you really want to be immortal if it meant you could never die?

While most are good sports about these things, I’ve received my fair share of puzzled looks in my time, so imagine my delight when I came across a website called Ask500 where you can pose these questions to a global audience. The site is set up where anyone can ask a question and if it receives enough votes, then they’ll leave it at the top of their main page until 500 people have viewed it. Over the last year, I’ve been ducking in and out of the site and since I’ve enjoyed it so much I thought that I’d share some of what I’ve learned. While these results aren’t necessarily scientific, I did find a few of them surprising.

-Considering that it costs more to make a penny than the actual monetary value, I thought it was interesting that people were split 50/50 when asked if it would bother them if we retired the penny.

-41% have lived dangerously by hitchhiking at least once.

If you’d like to view all of the questions that I’ve asked, you can see them here. If you haven’t checked out the site yet, I’d encourage you sign up because it offers all kinds of wacky entertainment. If you’re a business and are interested in crowd sourcing some of your market research, Ask500 has a sponsorship program where you can get instant feedback on ideas.

Posted on March 10th, 2010 by Davis
Filed under: Technology | 4 Comments »

Since bursting on the scene 13 years ago, Netflix has been a huge ally for consumers trying to save money. For years Blockbuster had dominated the rental industry and whether it was abusive late fee practices or high rental prices, they took advantage of their strength. The value that Netflix passed onto consumers injected some good old fashioned competition back into the DVD market and led to new forms of innovation. While Netflix continues to remain one of the best values for your entertainment buck, the firm has recently started to engage in some very anti-consumer behavior.

Most notably, they’ve been trying to strike agreements with studios to delay when they offer new release DVD rentals to their customers. In exchange for lower prices, they’ve agreed to put all of the new movies by Warner Brothers on very long wait status for their customers. In exchange, they get lower prices that will help them to drive brick and mortar competitors out of business. So far most studios are only watching these experiments from the sidelines, but Warner Brothers has embraced this scheme with gusto and has followed up their agreement with Netflix by striking a similar deal with Redbox.

Ironically, Redbox actually dismissed an anti-trust claim against Warner Brothers, in exchange for being invited into this exclusive club. Now some will argue that the beauty of Netflix is their deep archived content and while 487 or the 488 movies in my queue currently show availability of now, they’re customers who do like to rent new releases. By making them wait, Netflix is creating an artificial rental window that allows Warner Brothers to charge higher prices for new release DVDs and causes the price for rentals to rise at rental firms like Blockbuster. In fact since striking these agreements, Blockbuster has raised prices on their DVD by mail program and reinstated late fees to their customers. This is a reversal of the price wars that consumers enjoyed over the last decade.

While Netflix and Redbox haven’t seen much in the way of customer defections from implementing this hostile policy, they may find their activities under closer scrutiny thanks to Susan Uman from Manhattan. In a lawsuit against Netflix, she argues that this latest rental window is nothing but anti-competitive collusion. Already, Netflix has been sued over a different arrangement with Walmart to carve up the sales and the rental markets, so it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

According to USLegal.com, “collusion occurs when two persons or representatives of an entity or organization make an agreement to deceive or mislead another. Such agreements are usually secretive, and involve fraud or gaining an unfair advantage over a third party, competitors, consumers or others with whom they are negotiating. The collusion, therefore, makes the bargaining process inherently unfair. Collusion can involve price or wage fixing, kickbacks, or misrepresenting the independence of the relationship betweeen the colluding parties.”

While there is a fine line between collusion and standard industry business agreements, the deal that Netflix made cheats customers out of new releases and I think it crosses that line. They have in effect sold their first sale rights, in exchange for financial terms that give them an economic advantage over smaller competitors in their industry. According to this primer by the Justice Department, collusion tends to occur when we see some of the following conditions.

“-Collusion is more likely to occur if there are few sellers. The fewer the number of sellers, the easier it is for them to get together and agree on prices, bids, customers, or territories. Collusion may also occur when the number of firms is fairly large, but there is a small group of major sellers and the rest are “fringe” sellers who control only a small fraction of the market.

-Bidders who congregate in the same building or town to submit their bids have an easy opportunity for last-minute communications.”

Looking over this list, it would appear that Netflix is very much in a position to abuse their market leadership status. With Movie Gallery in bankruptcy for the 2nd time and Blockbuster getting close to a date with the grim reaper themselves, Netflix and Redbox represent the future of the DVD rental industry. This limited competition has made it easy for them to enter into agreements that wouldn’t have been tolerated by customers five years ago. If Blockbuster had the finances to actually keep new releases in stock, one might argue otherwise, but their company is in survival mode and are now having to pay Warner Brothers more for each new release then their two biggest threats.

While Netflix and Redbox may not have their headquarters located in the same town, both have been aggressively courting Hollywood for access to their movies. Since the studios are largely controlled by a small handful of companies, it gives them the ability to collude with the limited DVD renters that are left.

Prior to their agreement with Warner Brothers, Redbox was on the outside of this club and was being forced to acquire their DVDs from outlets like Walmart because Warner Brothers refused to even do business with them. Now that they’ve stopped sticking up for the consumer, they have access to all the DVDs that they want to buy. If this doesn’t qualify as collusion, I’m not sure what does.

It’s hard to say how much legal merit this lawsuit will have, but from my viewpoint, I believe that Netflix, Redbox and Warner Brothers have created an illegal cartel to try and carve up the DVD market. Warner Brother’s gets to force consumers to buy new release DVDs, instead of being able to rent at lower prices and the rental companies get cheaper supply which helps to boost their profits. While I’m sad that Redbox gave up on fighting for consumers, I am glad that consumers aren’t afraid to fight back. Hopefully, Ms. Uman takes this case all the way, instead of settling at the last minute for a million dollar windfall.

Posted on March 5th, 2010 by Davis
Filed under: DVDs, Kiosks, Media, Movies, Netflix | Comments Off

Money may not buy you love, but it can apparently buy you an exclusive for TiVo’s March 2nd secret product, according to a leaked memo from Best Buy. TiVo blogger Dave Zatz received a copy of the memo from an anonymous source and and while we haven’t received confirmation that the memo is legit, it certainly sounds like big things are in store for TiVo over the next year.

If the memo is accurate, TiVo is about to receive a $20 million advertising windfall from Best Buy, in exchange for giving them a national retail exclusive on their secret product. To help put this into perspective, over the last 12 months TiVo spent a mere $4.7 million of their own money on advertising, so this could go a long way towards boosting subscriber acquisitions.

Here’s a complete copy of the memo,

“You Think You Know TiVo? You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet.

On March 2, TiVo’s game-changing plans will be revealed, so stay tuned. You’ll want your sales associates to know all about this exciting news, so make sure they check out TiVo’s new eLearning on Learning Lounge, starting on March 3.”

After thinking about the memo, a couple of things really jump out at me. First off, I’m surprised at how excited Best Buy seems to be about the product announcement. While I expect that TiVo would want to generate as much hype as they could for their upcoming press conference, Best Buy wouldn’t need to do this for a memo that was never meant to go public. Yet, in their memo they use some pretty strong language to describe TiVo’s top secret product.

Terms like “something major”, “unsurpassed entertainment experience” and “transform the way people watch TV” would all suggest that TiVo’s announcement is going to be a bit more significant than the addition of a QWERTY remote or placeshifting abilities. While claiming that the DVR was just a “warmup” may be an impossible standard for TiVo to beat, this memo would suggest that something radical is in store for TiVo fans.

While it’s always possible that the memo could turn out to be an unsubstantiated TiVo rumor, some of Tom Roger’s comments from their last earnings call lend credibility to the leak. After being challenge by an analyst over TiVo’s subscriber defections, Rogers had bold words about the budding relationship between the two companies,

“We do think also that those trends can begin to be reversed. That is not something that will take effect in any meaningful way for this holiday season, because it’s dependent on some future development that we want to have for Best Buy before they really light up their promotion and marketing undertakings. Once that’s in full swing, that too should begin to well reverse those trends in 2010, at least that’s what we are working toward.”

Giving Best Buy an exclusive could potentially backfire on TiVo by making them less attractive to other retailers, but $20 million in advertising would certainly go a long way towards jump starting subscriber acquisitions once again. If internet retailers like Amazon are still allowed to sell the new hardware, the extra marketing would more than pay for any strained relationships with companies like Radio Shack. If you also include the advertising that DirecTV is expected to do, once their product launches as well as any potential advertising that TiVo could see from Comcast (if their product ever actually goes national), TiVo could see their most significant subscriber gains in years.

While we won’t know how much of this is hype vs. reality until TiVo holds their press conference on March 2nd, Best Buy’s leaked memo certainly makes this something to watch live, instead of TiVoing the event.

Posted on February 28th, 2010 by Davis
Filed under: Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, TiVo | 1 Comment »

The US patent office must have gotten their hard drives unpaused, because hot on the heels of winning a patent related to closed captions on a DVR, TiVo has been awarded another patent at the heart of the DVR experience. With the application having been filed in October of 1999, it took the USPTO over ten years to review and approve their request, but on February 16th, TiVo was given the legal exclusive on season pass technology.

For those of you unfamiliar with how a DVR works, part of their magic is the ability to let you record shows in the future without having to worry about when it’s on. Back in the ole VCR days, you’d typically have to manually tell your gadget what time and channel you wanted it to record, but with TiVo (and other DVRs) they keep track of this information automagically and records your programs whenever it’s scheduled to be on. Because the TV studios tend to schedule all of their good programming at the same time (I’m looking at you Thursday night), there are sometimes conflicts between what you’d like to record and the number of TV tuners available to do it.

To resolve these issues, TiVo created a season pass manager that allows you to prioritize which shows get recorded and which ones don’t. This helps to make sure that I always get to watch Survivor and CSI, even if it means that I sometimes have to skip Community.

From patent 7,665,111,

“The invention correlates an input schedule that tracks the free and occupied time slots for each input source with a space schedule that tracks all currently recorded programs and the programs that have been scheduled to be recorded in the future, to schedule new programs to record and resolve recording conflicts. A program is recorded if at all times between when the recording would be initiated and when it expires, sufficient space is available to hold it. Programs scheduled for recording based on inferred preferences automatically lose all conflict decisions. All scheduling conflicts are resolved as early as possible. Schedule conflicts resulting from the recording of aggregate objects are resolved using the preference weighting of the programs involved. A background scheduler attempts to schedule each preferred program in turn until the list of preferred programs is exhausted or no further opportunity to record is available. A preferred program is scheduled if and only if there are no conflicts with other scheduled programs “

Without the ability to do this, the DVR would be as hard to program as the blinking clock on the front of your VCR. Recognizing how crucial this feature was to the DVR experience, TiVo moved aggressively to patent the feature, before they even rolled out their technology to the public.

In the ten years since then, TiVo’s season pass technology hasn’t really changed all that much. Most of their DVRs now come with two tuners instead of one, but the basic experience has remained the same.

Two improvements, that I’d like to see them make to their season pass manager would be faster processing times for when you want to rearrange your priorities or delete season passes and some kind of a menu that can identify future conflicts even after you’ve already scheduled your program list.

If TiVo introduces a DVR with faster microchips at their March 2nd press event, the long delay after reorganizing your season pass should take care of itself, but making their conflict resolution program a bit more robust would need some kind of a software upgrade.

While TiVo is good at pointing out conflict issues when you first schedule a program, they rely solely on your prioritization list when considering future conflicts. This may ensure that the programs you care about most get recorded, but it can make it difficult to know when you’ve missed an episode because of a scheduling change. In the past this hasn’t been much of an issue because the consumer’s only option would be to wait for a rerun, but with sites like Hulu and Netflix now streaming the repeats, it would be nice to be able to view some kind of a report of what you missed that week, so that you could watch any missed programs online.

While pretty much every single DVR currently uses this embodiment of the season pass manager, TiVo’s latest patent isn’t without a workaround. Because it was invented during a time when cloud computing was an expensive pipe dream, TiVo only patented the client side application of this technology. In other words, as long as the conflict resolution is done remotely on a server, competitors like Microsoft and cable companies could avoid infringement. Of course, this could potentially be a lot more expensive than licensing the patent from TiVo to begin with, but given the current trend towards remote DVR services, the USPTO’s long application process may have made TiVo’s invention obsolete, before they’ll have much of a chance to enforce it.

Posted on February 18th, 2010 by Davis
Filed under: Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Netflix, Technology, TiVo, VOD | 7 Comments »

TiVo doesn’t know whether or not their injunction against Dish’s DVR will hold up yet, but that hasn’t stopped them from adding to their patent portfolio in the meantime. In a remarkable filing with the USPTO, TiVo appears to have now won an important patent for displaying closed caption information to DVR customers.

In addition to covering this important feature, TiVo’s latest addition to their portfolio, also appears to encompass enhanced TV services, including a “clip and sling” type technology, that could eventually allow TiVo users to automatically remove commercials from time shifted programs.

According to patent 7,661,121, TiVo now owns the right to use existing closed caption and Enhanced Television (ETV) signaling data to create an interactive experience for their customers. ETV data is metadata that content owners have started to embed into their programming. It’s been used by Cablelabs and is part of the fundamental architecture behind big cable’s sinking “Canoe” DVR advertising venture. While I would suspect that the cable companies also have patents related to how ETV data can be used, it will undoubtedly be another series of rapids that the long delayed project will have to maneuver through.

While the abstract for TiVo’s latest patent is a little vague, if you delve into the details, you start to understand why TiVo would try to seize this particular piece of intellectual property. Essentially, the patent allows TiVo to sync closed caption information (and metadata) from broadcast programs recorded on a DVR and then display that data in an interactive format. This data can be as simple as a menu or closed captioned text or can be as advanced as digital video and sound effects.

From the patent,

“A multimedia device may use closed-caption data patterns to recognize and synchronize to multimedia content streams. The types of data patterns available in closed-caption data are numerous. For instance, distinct data patterns may exist within the actual closed-caption text, the closed-caption control data, as well as well as any other event defined by the closed-caption data. By recognizing distinct patterns within the closed-caption data, a DVR may identify events within the multimedia content stream. One way of recognizing patterns within closed-caption data is by computing hash values representing closed-caption text and identifying patterns of hash value sequences. Thus, according to one embodiment, at a multimedia device, such as a DVR or server, the closed-caption data is parsed and hash values are generated corresponding to the closed-caption data. The hash values are then compiled into hash value sequences associated with particular video programs or segments, and further combined with metadata defining command and control information for processing at multimedia devices. These hash sequences and metadata are provided to multimedia devices such as DVRs in the form of hash value sequence data. The multimedia devices use the hash value sequence data for recognizing and synchronizing to closed-caption data. A matching algorithm is used by the multimedia device to sequentially compare generated hash values from the closed caption data with multiple hash sequences that the multimedia device has stored locally. According to one embodiment, the matching algorithm is implemented through a state machine that processes the generated hash values and reports whether or not a match has occurred with a hash sequence identified by the hash value sequence data. ”

While the patent was only awarded on February 9th, TiVo actually implemented part of this technology years ago. Not only do they already offer a number of different ways to view closed caption data, but if you’ve ever watched a commercial on TiVo from one of their corporate partners, you’ve probably noticed a thumbs up icon that lets you easily subscribe to a show or order more product information.

While TiVo’s current implementation of this technology is admittedly pretty limited, the patent hints that there may be more powerful features going forward.

“”A user can mark off sections of a multimedia program or place points of interest relating to content within the multimedia program. For example, a user may want to mark the best plays of a recording of a football game. Once the user marks the plays, he can send the resulting hash sequences to a friend’s DVR.” [Bold added by me]

One of the reasons why Dish was never able to launch their clip and sling technology was because the content owners threw a hissy fit and threatened to sue the bejesus out them, if they made it easy for consumers to share content. While I don’t know the technical details behind what Sling was trying to accomplish, my sense of the project was that they wanted to let users edit other people’s content and then redistribute digital copies of those clips. The genius behind TiVo’s method is that their method wouldn’t allow anyone to “share content” that wasn’t entirely owned by the customer or TiVo.

“DVR users can distribute their own sets of points of interest for programs to other users. Users can further attach metadata to each point of interest that may cause the DVR to display text to the viewer, e.g., “Isn’t this a great action scene?” The user may also attach metadata to a point of interest that tells the DVR to skip x seconds into the program from that point of interest or display x seconds of the program before skipping to the next point of interest. This allows users to create their own condensed versions of a program that they can distribute to their friends, family, classmates, students, interest group, etc.”

While TiVo uses the example of a clipping highlights from a football game in their patent filing, I’m much more interested in how TiVo customers could potentially use this technology to remove commercials from YOUR programs. If both you and I have already recorded a particular show, there is no copyright violation because we’re both recording content that we already own. By allowing their users to create hash tag data, TiVo would technically own that data and would have the right to distributed that hash tag data to other DVRs without having to worry about content owners accusing them of stealing.

This would make it easy for me (or more likely someone else since I time shift everything ) to easily tag all the commercials in a program and TiVo would then know to auto-skip past the content (commercials) when it saw the tags. TiVo could also use this as a way for live subscribers to tag the end of football and basketball games, so that they wouldn’t get cut off if the game went to overtime.

Another interesting embodiment of this patent would be the combination of live information with time shifted programming. Whenever I watch something a few months old, I always see commercials for upcoming TV shows or movies that are way past their expiration date. Instead of advertisers wasting their money on DVR subscribers, they could use sponsored hash tags to replace an old ad with something more current. Alternatively, if you were time shifting the news, TiVo could use your internet connection to create a live scrolling ticker that could update you on any new developments in the story.

Other potential uses that appear to be covered by the patent would include shows that have choose your own adventure type storylines. Upset about Chuck and Sarah not hooking up? the producers could give fans an alternate storyline to explore and allow viewers to vote on how they want to see the story move forward or TiVo could use this patent to create Blind Date type pop-ups around recorded television. While I tend to prefer my TV clutter free, for events like the state of the union, I can see why people would be interested in having fun facts pop up, addressing the issues that are being discussed.

While we haven’t seen any of these implementations take place today, the mere fact that TiVo was thinking about these options when they filed the patent would seem to suggest that they’ve been quietly innovating behind the scenes. This new patent award won’t necessarily help them in their case against Verizon or AT&T, but it could offer the telcos yet another reason to settle their dispute with TiVo, instead of being forced to place limits on the future of TV.

Posted on February 11th, 2010 by Davis
Filed under: Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, SA, Slingbox, TV, TiVo | 9 Comments »

Over the past five years, there’s been a lot of debate around the topic of net neutrality and while there have been a few examples where internet providers have tried to favor their own services over the competition, by and large this has turned out to be little more than a boogey man. Don’t get me wrong, I think that it’s important to keep the playing field level, but I also believe that there are bigger issues where consumers are being harmed.

While many media companies would like to see the first sale doctrine done away with, ever since the supreme court established the doctrine in 1908, consumers have enjoyed tremendous benefits from it. The concept, which was later codified into law in 1976, allows businesses and individuals to resell goods that they’ve legally purchased. Without it, companies like Ebay, Craigslist and Blockbuster Video wouldn’t even be possible.

Having the right to resell goods benefits consumers in two major ways. First, it reduces the risks that consumers have to take when making purchases. This ultimately makes things cheaper for all of us, because companies are forced to compete with their own products and consumers have a way of recouping part of their initial expense.

When I first purchased my TiVo series 3 for example, I spent over $800 on the product. While this may seem like an insane amount to spend for television, I was able to justify the cost in part, because I sold my original TiVo on eBay for $200 and knew that one day I would be able to resell my Series 3 (currently worth approximately $400 on Ebay) to recover part of my expense. As a result, I’ve been able to enjoy a premium DVR experience for about 1/3rd what it would have cost me to rent an inferior DVR from my cable company.

The second benefit to the consumer is that by having a robust resell market, it allows more businesses/middlemen to participate. This ultimately increases demand, stimulates innovation, and drives down prices. Redbox for example is able to rent you a DVDs at 1/20th of the cost or what it would cost you to buy the actual DVD thanks in large part to the first sale doctrine. Because Redbox knows that they can get more than 20 people to share the same product, it enables consumers to save money, the media companies to sell more DVDs and for Redbox to still earn a tidy profit in the process.

While the first sale doctrine has been a huge benefit for consumers over the last 100 years, these benefits are rapidly being eroded as media moves digital. Because the first sale doctrine was based on physical goods, it hasn’t aged very well in the digital realm. As a result, consumers have been forced to endure awkward DRM implementations, limited availability of digital content and higher prices for media services.

As the top media conglomerates have sought to seize more and more control over the distribution of their products, they’ve shifted from a world where you have the ability to “own” your media, to one where you only have the option to “license” your content.

For a lot of consumers, this distinction may not seem important, but it has profound implications on the future of digital entertainment. Since firms aren’t allowed to buy products at a wholesale price and rent them to multiple consumers, they’ve been forced to negotiate agreements one by one. This is a costly and time intensive process that has limited how quickly media can migrate online. It has also given the media conglomerates monopolistic control over prices. Instead of being forced to compete in an open environment, they are able to take their ball and go home, when they haven’t liked the terms and conditions that innovators offer them.

The result of this transition from ownership to licensing has increased costs for consumers even beyond the price of media. Take for example, the various hardware devices that we’ve seen released over the last five years. If you want to watch digital copies of old movies and TV shows, you can do it through Netflix, but only if it’s on a device that has a business relationship with them. When Sony decided to release a digital copy of Cloudy with a chance of meatballs at the same time the movie was in the theaters, consumers could only participate on select Sony TVs.

If you prefer to watch new releases from Apple’s iTunes store, you’ll need to buy an AppleTV to easily watch that content on your TV. If you want to watch a DivX file that you purchased from CinemaNow, you’ll need to illegally hack your AppleTV or purchase a DivX certified device instead. It’s fantastic that consumers have the ability to record HD cable TV through TiVo, but if you subscribe to AT&T or Dish Networks, you’ll need additional (proprietary) hardware to decode their signals.

While many of these businesses have come a long way towards opening up their systems and fulfilling the digital dream, they’ve all been limited by what content holders allow. As a result, consumers must face a digital minefield where DRM and file formats are used to limit what you can do with the content that you’ve paid for.

As we continue to move forward into the digital world, I think it’s important that consumers shouldn’t have to abandon the first sale protections that have served us so well over the last century. What I propose is a new set of rules that would allow media companies to control their prices, but would also give consumers (and businesses) a way to move past some of these restrictions.

While the DMCA has been a mixed blessing for tech companies and consumers, it is in desperate need of an update (and one that isn’t written by the lobbyists.) For example, currently, it’s illegal for consumers (or businesses) to circumvent DRM, even if consumers are being harmed by the DRM. This has led to situations where people who have purchased media, later lost access to those rights because a provider went out of business. Situations, where companies are unable to offer lifetime licenses in the cloud, because of exclusivity clauses in contracts with pay TV channels.

What I purpose is that if media companies want DMCA protection for their content, it should come with strings attached. In crafting new rules for a modern first sale doctrine, I would require content owners to set a wholesale price that all businesses would be allowed to buy content at. They could still require minimum purchases sizes and would have complete control over what they wanted to charge for that content, but they shouldn’t be allowed to sell a license at one price to one company and then exploit another company for political reasons.

What this would do is create a level playing field for all of the digital retailers. If UMG wants to charge $50 for a download, they would have the right to do this, but they couldn’t favor one vendor over another and they couldn’t punish innovators for being successful or passing on value to the consumer. This would also bring welcome competition to the pay TV market because media companies wouldn’t be able to play MSO’s off of each other.

For example, I’d love to be able to see every NFL game each season, but I can’t unless I’m willing to subscribe to DirecTV for service. Instead of making consumers fight and choose over exclusive content, everyone should be given fair access to that content. If cable companies don’t want to pay the price of admission, they would be less competitive with consumers. The end result would be more demand for NFL content by consumers and more competition for their dollars. If we allow media companies to continue with exclusive content in the digital realm, it will only makes it more expensive for everyone.

I also think that if the media wants to continue to have DMCA restrictions on their DRM, that they shouldn’t be allowed to use that DRM to discriminate between hardware partners. It’s great that I’ve got the ability to record HDTV on my TiVo, but since cablecards don’t work with satellite or U-verse, it essentially gives Comcast a monopoly on pay television for TiVo households.

As a result, Comcast is able to provide abusive cablecard support without having to worry about competition. If they knew that they had to actually compete for the $50 – $200 a month that they charge, it would encourage them to provide better service and to continue to innovate, (even if consumers decide not to use Comcast’s equipment.) Instead we’ve seen cable companies limit the ability for consumers to take their programs on the go and prevent consumers from accessing VOD services on DVRs that aren’t rented from them, all without having to worry about repercussions.

The same is true for digital downloads. If Apple wants to use DRM to help protect their content partners, they should be allowed to, but not at the expense of consumers. If other hardware manufacturers want to build support for iTunes’ product they should be allowed to license the DRM (at cost) from Apple. This would prevent Apple from offering exclusive downloads that lock consumers into their own hardware ecosystem. The end result would be more devices that could play Apple content and more competition among set top box manufacturers. This competition would cause prices to drop and would encourage Apple and others to be innovative with the features and services that they offer to their customers.

While some may be content to let the media industry continue to grow inside of these walled gardens, I’d like to see a world where someone can legally purchase media and play it on any device that they want to. By creating new laws to help better regulate the abuses of our current licensing system, consumers, businesses and the online video industry as a whole, would be allowed to flourish across many different platforms. Instead of being forced to buy the same content over and over and over again, consumers would be allowed to license their media under fair and reasonable conditions.

Posted on February 10th, 2010 by Davis
Filed under: DRM, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, DivX, Media, Technology, TiVo, VOD | Comments Off

See larger view of chart here

While old school media types like to insist that content is king, when it comes to viewing said content, the format and media player can make a big difference in the quality of the user experience. With new options seeming to crop up everyday, I wanted to take a look at a few of the most popular media players (and video destinations) to determine which one is the best for consumers. While individual results may vary, here is the criteria I used to evaluate each one.

Format Support
With so many different formats out there, it’s important that your top media player has robust support. Since consumers shouldn’t have to scour the web to add additional functionality, I did not include any plugins that consumers could use to add greater support. Of all the players listed, the VLC clearly won this category. Whether you’re trying to watch Quicktime movies or play a VOB file, if VLC can’t handle the codec, you probably shouldn’t be trying to play it to begin with. The clear loser in this category was the Netflix Media player. While I have no complaints about the quality of their stream, the DRM restrictions and the requirement for downloading the Silverlight plugin, makes their web player pretty limited.

Ability to Stream Online
When digital movies first came out, you used to have to wait a couple hours for your file to download. With the introduction of streaming support, consumers no longer have to wait more than a few seconds in order to get access to that content. While most video players are able to support this functionality, I felt that Netflix was the clear winner for this category. Not only do their video streams take into account your bandwidth to reduce buffering issues, but they also seem to have the highest video quality when streaming content. The clear loser in this category was the VLC player. While technically, there are ways to use it to stream torrent files while downloading, for the most part the VLC player is designed strictly for offline media.

Ability to Play Offline
A lot of people don’t think that this feature is very important, but as someone who commutes an hour per day by train, being able to view my videos offline is just as important as being able to stream them. Once again, the VLC Player takes top honors due to their ability to handle high definition files and the robustness of their offline support. While Amazon, Netflix and YouTube don’t allow you to easily save files on your laptop, because they offer hardware support, they get a free pass on this one. Hulu on the other hand, ranks at the bottom of this list because they don’t allow consumers to watch a movie unless it’s on an internet connected computer screen.

Auto-Dimmer
In order to create a more cinematic experience, a few media companies have started to incorporate dimmer technology into their players. While Hulu does allow users to black out distractions manually, they don’t do it automatically. DivX on the other hand, will slowly darken the screen outside of your video, to help better focus on what your watching. This really is neat technology and something that I hope will catch on. Since none of the other media players include this functionality, it’s a tie for last place on this one.

Disable Screen Saver
Few things are more annoying than being totally immersed in a film and then BAM, all of a sudden your viewing experience is interrupted by your screensaver popping up. While users can always disable this themselves, it’s easy to forget to do this and cumbersome for media companies to expect them to. DivX, Windows Media Player, Amazon and VLC all take top honors for ensuring a seamless experience. Netflix finishes in a close second place, in part because I’ve noticed that their software will sometimes cause the media toolbar to pop-up when the screensaver tries to activate. At the bottom of this list is Hulu, who actually has the gall to request that their users disable their screensavers themselves, instead of helping to automate this experience.

High Definition Support
While a lot of people advertise high definition support, not all HD is created equally. As broadband pipes continue to get fatter, the ability to support larger and/or more advance compression algorithms is becoming a critical differentiator between various media players. The top honors in this category goes to VLC and DivX for supporting the MKV/H.264 format. The worst player is Real Media who may have pioneered video on the web during dial-up days, but hasn’t aged very well.

One Click Full Screen
While all of the media players reviewed allow for full screen support, some players make it easier for consumers to jump in and out of this experience. Making someone hunt around for a tiny button to maximize their video, just isn’t as friendly as letting them double click on their screen and instantly be able to see the full picture. Amazon, CinemaNow, DivX and Windows Media all make it easy for you to do this. Quicktime on the other hand, actually makes consumers pay money in order to get this functionality . . .

Hardware Support
Consumers used to have to burn their movies to DVD if they wanted to play it on the big screen, but over the last few years, we’ve seen a number of connected devices that will allow you to easily transfer content to your television. The winner in this category is clearly Netflix. Not only have their pioneered this particular field, but they’ve been able to strike agreements with a wide range of consumer electronic companies. Whether you own a DVR or a video game console, they’ve set the gold standard for watching internet video beyond the monitor. The worst offender is Hulu. Not only are they limited to the web, but they’ve actually fought attempts by innovators like Boxee, to bring their content to the TV set. While their studio owners may have good reasons for trying to keep consumers from cutting the cord, such an anti-consumer stance will only hurt them in the long run.

Subscription, Pay-Per-View or Free Content
With so many different services offering different forms of content, it’s made life pretty difficult for the modern digital consumer. If you want to view new releases, you have to visit Apple, CinemaNow or Amazon. If you want content that doesn’t charge you to experiment, then a subscription to Netflix is the best way to go. If you’re looking for free content, then you should consider Hulu or VLC. While no one seems to have figured out a perfect way to consolidate all three features at once, CinemaNow has done the best job of offering consumers flexibility when it comes to how you want to pay for content. While they don’t offer much in the way of free or ad supported content, they do allow you to rent, purchase or subscribe to various digital packages.

While it’s hard to say that any one media player is THE best, my recommendation for consumers would be a combination of Netflix and the VLC player. Both provide an excellent user experience, as well as high definition support and while your options may be limited on Netflix, they’ve done a good job of integrating their video streams beyond the computer and into a larger hardware eco-system.

Posted on February 2nd, 2010 by Davis
Filed under: DivX, Netflix, TV, VOD | 3 Comments »

I’m a big fan of internet video, but nothing can replace the big screen high definition experience and while I knew it would happen sooner or later, I still wasn’t fully prepared when my big screen Sony Wega gave a loud pop and ceased to display the magic flickering lights that I’ve fallen in love with.

My first response was one of panic. I knew that it was possible that I might have a burned out bulb, but given some of the issues that other Wega owners have had, I also knew that it might be more serious. After the panic subsided, I started making a few calls to see what it would cost me to bring in a pro. After getting a few quotes, I was shocked at how expensive it can be, just to have a repairman troubleshoot your big screen. While I’ll admit to being tempted to use this as an excuse to make the jump from a rear projector to a flat screen, I also wasn’t ready to give up on my TV just yet.

So with gritty determination, I started wading through the murky waters of the internet, in search of a potential diagnosis. The more research I did, the more apparent it was, that I had in fact exhausted the lovelight inside my television. Luckily, it turns out that this sort of repair is pretty easy for the home gamer to fix, so after finding a generic replacement lamp online, I eagerly waited the opportunity to try my hand at television repair.

Once my lamp arrived there were a few complications, but as long as you know how to use a screwdriver, most people should be able to fix their own Sony Wega, if your lamp goes dark. One complication that I did run into was the difference between replacing a lamp on a Sony Wega compared to other big screen TVs. Most rear projectors require you to replace the lamp from the back of the set, but Sony has flipped it around and requires you to go in from the front.

To help extend the life of your own big screen experience, I present this step by step guide to replacing a burned out lamp in a Sony Wega TV.

The first step is to unplug your TV to make sure that you don’t electrocute yourself. I’m not sure if the Wega retains an electrical charge after your unplug it, but since a lot of home electronics can still give you a shock, I waited 15 minutes before proceeding. The next step is to start taking apart your TV, so you can get into the guts. If you look at the front of the TV, you’ll notice that there is a grey plastic strip right below the screen.

The strip looks like it’s part of the screen, but it actually comes off and if you look at the back of your TV, you’ll see a black knob on both ends of the TV holding this strip attached. While the knobs are big enough that you can unscrew them with just your fingers, a large flat head screwdriver may come in handy when doing this step.

Click here for large photo

Once you’ve unscrewed these knobs, you can go ahead and pop off the front panel. When you try to pry it off, it may feel like it’s still screwed in, but it’s actually being held in place with two magnets. You don’t want to use so much force that you’ll break the bezel, but you will want to get it a good pull to get it to snap off.

Behind the bezel, right dab smack in middle of the TV, you’ll see two panels that protect the lamp and the guts that power the on/off switch. You’ll need to unscrew the panel protecting the on/off switch first, because the panel protecting the lamp is buried beneath. Once you take out all five screws, you’ll be able to swing both panels open and should see a black box that contains your lamp. This is located directly behind the flimsy plastic shell that is somehow designed to protect you from radiation.

When I opened mine, I needed a Torx 10 screwdriver to take the lamp out. Since my replacement lamp included regular screws, I decided to put those in to make future replacements easier. Once you’ve unscrewed the lamp, all you’ll need to do is slide it out and slide the replacement lamp back in.

After you’ve replaced the plastic covers, pop the front panel back into place, tighten the knobs on the back of the TV, and you should be ready to watch some high definition big screen TV again.

While the entire experience was a little intimidating at first, I was really surprise at how easy of a repair this really was. While there was some risk that the replacement lamp wouldn’t have solved my problem, I figured that it wouldn’t kill me to have a spare on hand anyway. Since the cheapest repair technician was asking three times the cost of the lamp, just to diagnose my problem, I felt that this was a cost effective way to deal with the problem.

If you tend to get frustrated by electronic gizmos and gadgets, it may worth calling in a pro, but if you can figure out how to hook up a DVD player to your TV, you should have the skill set to make this kind of repair.

Posted on February 2nd, 2010 by Davis
Filed under: TV | 6 Comments »

You can mock me for being afraid of the black helicopters or alien visitors with advanced technology, but I learned long ago that there are enough legitimate threats out there, that people need to take internet security seriously.

As a small business owner, I’m not just concerned about protecting my own privacy, but I also care about the vendors and customers who do business with me. Because of this, I’m willing to pay a premium in order to have the best anti-virus protection on my computer, so two years ago I purchased several subscriptions to one of McAfee’s anti-virus solutions. Given their reputation, I felt that they were the best at what they do and had complete trust in their service. Unfortunately, after learning first hand how they treat their customers, their “total protection” turned out to be little more than a protection racket and I can promise you that I’ll never spend another dime on the company again.

My problem occurred late last year, ironically just 2 weeks before my anti-virus package was up for renewal. Since hackers tend to do a pretty good job of staying ahead of the curve, it’s always been important to me to update my software as promptly as possible. Whenever McAfee would release new virus definitions, it was a no brainer to install them. Because McAfee had earned my complete trust, I never thought twice about the possibility of them sneaking malware into one of these updates.

Yet, after approving one such “recommended update”, I was dismayed to find an obnoxious button with the McAfee logo sitting at the top of my internet browser. Without every clearly explaining what they were doing, McAfee had installed a Siteadvisor toolbar directly on my internet explorer browser. Since I’m particular about how my browser is customized and since I was already aware of the Siteadvisor service, I wasn’t very happy about giving up valuable real estate on my screen to someone who I had paid money to. Worse yet, one of the proprietary programs that I use for my work had a conflict with their program making the situation completely unacceptable.

Being a little bit computer savvy, I figured it would be easy enough to disable or uninstall the update, but no matter what I tried, I simply could not get this button off of my browser. Over the years, I’ve had to deal with my fair share of malware and unwanted viruses and while there have been times where it took a bit of effort and research to get rid of these obnoxious predators, I’ve never had this much difficulty zapping an unwanted visitor before. If you search the web, you’ll find a ton of other people asking about how to remove it and a lot of answers telling them just to give up.

Here’s a good example of what other people’s experience with the program has been like.

” one good reason to remove it, is because the damn thing is a nightmare to remove and anything that evasive when it comes to uninstalling usually means it a bad thing. I’ve had less trouble getting rid of nasty virus’, therefor i consider it just as bad as a virus, because a user should have the right to remove their software, (and if its near impossible to remove, i’ve gotta wonder what else it upto that it shouldn’t be). I originally wanted to just remove stie adviser and keep the rest of my McAfee package, I’ve now uninstalled all of it in an atempt to get rid of it, and will never trush McAfee again, after relying on their antvirus for years. Its so bad i’m now resorting to formatting my shiny new laptop, which is less than ideal as I have to now try and hunt down all my drives. I’ve tried repeatedly to uninstall it in various ways I have Vista with IE7, I originally tried using the McAfee uninstaller, I have since removed it no less the 15 times using add or remove programs, even filled in their sodding questionair to why I removed it over and over again, but every time I open internet explorer it re-installs itself without my permission and leaves it it in a domant state, poping up a window saying it has been updated and wanting me to re-activate it every single time I open a new internet explorer window or tab, which as you can imagin is unbelievably annoyng. any surgestions about getting rid of it for good would be welcome?”

It would be one thing, if McAffee’s software was freeware and they choose to migrate to an ad supported model, but since I had paid for multiple copies of their software, having an ad forced on me was tacky at best. After conditioning me to always trust their updates, they took advantage of that trust by sneaking in a payload on an unsuspecting customer.

What really made this situation so infuriating though, wasn’t the mix-up with their unwanted malware or even the nefarious way that they choose to distribute this piece of software, it was what happened when I called the company for customer support.

After taking a look at the account, I was informed that since it had been more than 90 days after my purchase of a 2 year product, that McAfee wanted me to pay them a “service fee” before they’d be willing to help with my issue

Even when I asked to speak with a manager to discuss this policy, the rep flat out refused to transfer the call and told me that he wasn’t going to continue the conversation until I paid them the fee.

Over the years, many computer users have been tricked into a scam where they unwittingly download a piece of software that then tells them their machine is infected or at risk of a virus. While many viruses want to stay hidden, these programs want you to know about them because they then aggressively offer to sell you the antidote for getting rid of them. Not only is this behavior unethical, but it’s even considered illegal. In fact, just last month the FBI warned consumers about this very type of scareware and said that they think these scams have cost internet users over $150 million in bogus charges.

Now I can understand why McAfee is reluctant to help people troubleshoot their computers, especially when you may have installed a tricky virus or trojan file, but when their very own software uses sneaky and underhanded methods to place an ad on every web page you visit, I feel they owe it to their CUSTOMERS to help them get rid of this unwanted behavior. While they may have a good reputation within the anti-virus community, by requiring customers to pay an extra fee to get rid of THEIR unwanted software, they are essentially trying to extort money from the very people who are buttering their bread already.

McAfee may try to argue that they are only trying to protect their customers with a security enhancement, but I believe that their behavior is no different than what these scareware companies are trying to pull off.

Ultimately, the only way that I was able to get rid of this annoyance was to do a complete reinstall on my computer and to wipe out a lot of data in the process. Spending 3 – 4 hours to reformat my system and reinstalling my programs may sound like a lot of fun , but as a small business owner it cost me valuable time and money, that could have been spent more efficiently.

Since McAffee has built their business around a program where updating the software is a crucial part of the service, I don’t believe that it’s unreasonable for consumers to expect to have a hassle free experience when they are getting the most recent data files. Nor do I think that it’s unreasonable to expect a minimal level of technical support when it’s their own program that is causing the issue.

If you search the internet, it’s clear that these problems have been going on for a long time, but instead of dealing with them, McAfee continues to abuse customers who would prefer not to see an ad at the top of their browser. While this scheme may net their shareholders a little bit more in profits and a lot more in extra traffic to their Siteadvisor website, it’s also cost them at least one small, but irritated customer.

Posted on January 29th, 2010 by Davis
Filed under: Technology | 3 Comments »