# Guru Guide?



## johnecampos (Apr 21, 2006)

In today's Privacy bulletin they mention "advanced features of the TiVo service such as KidZone and Guru Guides." 

My question is, what are "Guru Guides?" I cannot find mention of it.

Thanks!

John


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

Guru what?


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

TiVo updated their privacy policy and let us know with a TiVo message - check your box for it.


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## Turtleboy (Mar 24, 2001)

I was waiting for someone to ask what Guru Guide is or at least comment on the privacy notice.. I'm surprised it took this long.

I bet those DirectTivo people (who really aren't Tivo people anyways) got the notice too. Doubtful.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

Turtleboy said:


> I was waiting for someone to ask what Guru Guide is or at least comment on the privacy notice.. I'm surprised it took this long.


Some of us work, Snoop. 

(actually, I probably wouldn't have read the message and seen this - so thanks to John)


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## Turtleboy (Mar 24, 2001)

davezatz said:


> Some of us work, Snoop.


I'm in school for another week, then start working again next month.

It's possible that the vast majority of the people who got it got it overnight, and went straight to work this morning without looking at their tivos.


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## gonzotek (Sep 24, 2004)

My guess...the 'adult'(for lack of a better term) version of KZ. It seemed to me from the KZ demo that there was more to the technology they were showing then 'just' kids programming...Customized guide lists provided by whoever partners up with TiVo. I can see sports, outdoors, cooking/crafting, and many broad categories like those, as well as more niched programming, perhaps things like Oprah's(or fill in your own celeb) Picks...or what about the couch critic?

/edit Assuming I'm at all in the ball park, this excites me because it's not necessarily based on the (possibly poor or misleading) metadata that we can use to find these kinds of programs today, but (hopefully) on human beings picking things they think fit their niches. And there's always the chance that there's stuff out there I'm missing that I would want to record, if only I knew it existed.

/edit/edit You know what would be even better than that, if we could share our own lists (either made from our SPM or NPL or hand-entered data on a pc).


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

Damn gonzo, you're pretty clever... I think you may be on to something!

/edit Instead of thinking he's on to something, I've decided he's nailed it in that first paragraph.  If that is correct, at what point do advertisers drive content selections? In some ways it reminds me of those iTunes celebrity playlists... but this could be by celebrity (NASCAR driver, Lance Armstrong, Martha Stewart) focusing on either their personal programming preferences OR their area of expertise (cars, fitness, home stuff).


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Gonzo if that's not what this is then TiVo should take the idea and do it anyway. That sounds pretty cool! :up:

Dan


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## gonzotek (Sep 24, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> Gonzo if that's not what this is then TiVo should take the idea and do it anyway. That sounds pretty cool! :up:
> 
> Dan


They can consider the idea free for the taking if so.......as long as I'm in on the beta .


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## dcahoe (Jan 29, 2006)

It's like watching, er reading, history in the making...


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

Is this Guru Guides renamed or what?

http://customersupport.tivo.com/knowbase/root/public/tv2198.htm


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

NIce catch Greg, I think you got it. Pony did say KidZone had other names before they setted on it (in fact Rogers called it something else once or twice when presenting in DC, but I can't find my notes at the monent), so it's possible the same is true of Guru Guide!


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

So which do you think they decided upon?


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

Expert Guru Picks Guides of course. I sure hope (and one would assume) they went with Guru Guide. It's got a nice ring to it and seemed obvious once gonzo explained it to us, whereas Expert Picks sounds sort of... vanilla. I do like vanilla though.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

greg_burns said:


> So which do you think they decided upon?


well in the whole stupid (yet typical of a minority hijacking the forum) threads on kidzone and the "family groups" we kept trying to repeat that others could volunteer their list of shows and anyone could use them. Never saw the direct mechanism for it so don't know if it is as easy as pointing to one at some URL or whatever but the point that any ones list can be used was totally lost apperently.

My guess is that this was probably first seen as a pick the list you want, thus a name like Guru Guide and then the whole family tier or a la carte channel thing hit the fan and thus the name kid zone was most likely born to help the cable execs out and also give a good selling point for TiVo on a topic of great interest at the moment. 
Most likely the reason for the preanouncement as well, strike while the iron is hot.


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## danieljanderson (Nov 19, 2002)

I looking for the ability to send recommendations to friends of mine that have TiVo as well as receive recommendations from them. Possibly even auto record if there are no conflicts. I would want this to work without the use of a PC. All from TiVo menus. 

I don't care what celebrities are recommending.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Most likely the reason for the preanouncement as well, strike while the iron is hot.


Is this a pre-announcement? Combined with those new SD dual tuner models showing up on retailers all over the Internet and those Blockbuster bundles in the TiVo store shopping cart (there still a couple of more up there if you're motivated to find them), I get the feeling TiVo has just been sloppy lately. Though all three incidents could be tied to release/announcement dates getting pushed back for whatever reason(s)...

Of these three pre-announcements, I only really care about the fourth... the one they've managed to contain/control. Where the heck is that new TiVo desktop software? For some reason I thought April was the target. Maybe we'll hear something next week!

EDIT: I may have misunderstood Zeo's point... Rereading, I think he meant *KidZone* was pre-announced due to the political climate in regards to family programming.  I agree with that, and would emphasize it was designed to market to cable/satellite companies as much (if not more) than to consumers. My other points stand.


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## peteypete (Feb 3, 2004)

I prefer Guru Guides and I hope its a combination of friends recommending & SENDING TV shows they liked, as well as some sort of "micro" channel that can be filled with other specialized content.

Anybody actually read the new policy and compare it to the old for any hints? I don't have a copy of the old.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

peteypete said:


> Anybody actually read the new policy and compare it to the old for any hints? I don't have a copy of the old.


I briefly compared them yesterday and there didn't apear to be any interesting differences.

Google's cache still has the 7/05 version for the moment...
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:_g8tVrUEHCsJ:www.tivo.com/5.11.3.asp&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

peteypete said:


> I prefer Guru Guides and I hope its a combination of friends recommending & SENDING TV shows they liked


Keep on dreaming. Ain't gonna happen, ever, IMO.


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## peteypete (Feb 3, 2004)

I'll keep dreaming, but those who follow Tivo closely will remember that they once (When they were developing their DRM) talked about sharing your recordings with up to 10 friends, and they even worked out a disagreement with the NFL about this.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

They worked it out with the DRM and NFL over TiVoToGo. I think you're misremembering the sharing part. ReplayTV had that though. But I think that was part of their downfall, IIRC.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

davezatz said:


> EDIT: I may have misunderstood Zeo's point... Rereading, I think he meant *KidZone* was pre-announced due to the political climate in regards to family programming.  I agree with that, and would emphasize it was designed to market to cable/satellite companies as much (if not more) than to consumers. My other points stand.


yes - I was thinking Kid zone and guru guide are basically the same thing just apporached differetnly for different reasons. And I doubt there is much chnage in the privacy policy - perhaps just more emphasis on the fact that if you ask to join up with something like say a car guide - then your personal info may be sent to them to fulfill that request.


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## dmdeane (Apr 17, 2000)

johnecampos said:


> My question is, what are "Guru Guides?"


Let us hope they are not somehow involved with the dreaded Guru Meditation errors.

(Speaking of deprecated error messages, I want my "sad TiVo" back!)


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Looks like Gonzo was right....

http://customersupport.tivo.com/knowbase/root/public/tv2198.htm

Dan


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## greg_burns (May 22, 2004)

I've been smeeked!


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

And by a moderator, no less!


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## Jag998 (Apr 21, 2006)

So now that we have an idea what this is, how do we think Tivo makes money off of this? Is this the always rumored "like Google" type of business model? Example: If TLC recommends a new program they have to record, and I record it, will Tivo get a fee for that?


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## jmoak (Jun 20, 2000)

peteypete said:


> I'll keep dreaming, but those who follow Tivo closely will remember that they once (When they were developing their DRM) talked about sharing your recordings with up to 10 friends, and they even worked out a disagreement with the NFL about this.





MickeS said:


> They worked it out with the DRM and NFL over TiVoToGo. I think you're misremembering the sharing part.





> The TiVo technology allows subscribers to share recorded TV content with a limited circle of friends and family across the Internet, according to the company.


From the article "FCC ignores MPAA, NFL; OKs new TiVo feature" at TheHollywoodReporter.com, August 5, 2004.


> Over the objections of the National Football League and the Motion Picture Association of America, the FCC last week approved TiVo Inc.s request to allow consumers to share saved TV programming with up to 10 friends of family for private use.


From the article "FCC OKs program sharing", at FreePress.net, August 9, 2004.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

Thanks for digging that up and refreshing our memories... interesting!


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

Cool, I really didn't think that was part of it. Maybe one day they'll actually use that... I certainly hope I was wrong a few posts back!


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

FYI the support page has been changed to say "Guru Guides" instead of "Expert Picks" - good job gonzo and Greg!


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