The new TiVo offerings will bring us a lot of CBS content as well as shared media from TiVo to TiVo users. It falls short of providing a TiVo videocast page where users can subscribe to video content from independent video producers via RSS. Technology Evangelist will be reporiting from the 2007 CES show in high definition, however, TiVo users will be unable to subscribe to our video content from TiVo's limited videocast direcotry. TiVo Series 2 and 3 users should be able to browse the directory through a web browser or TiVo to select the shows that interest them. As soon as a new show appears in the RSS feed it would be auto-downloaded to all of the TiVo users who subscribed to it then placed in the 'Now Showing' screen. While software such as Democracy Player does this today, I have not seen an HDTV set-top-box capable of doing this yet.

Another thing I should be able to do is tag videos I enjoy and suggest them to friends. Creating a TiVo community where I can easily mark a downloaded video as 'interesting' for my other TiVo friends would make the service more valuable for everyone. My TiVo network of friends should be able to download recommended videos, subscribe to the feed, or say 'you're an idiot, it's not interesting'. Likewise, I should be able to view a list of videos my friends found interesting, or even view a list of videos from friends of friends. Make the TiVo not just a set-top-box but an entire community of people who can share legally downloaded content from the Internet all via the TiVo Internet TV channel guide. Combine Internet video with cable/satellite video and you've got the ultimate home media set-top-box.

A note to TiVo: if you want to increase your subscriber base, reduce your monthly price to $9.99 and create a community effect for TiVo users. This will drive other users who want to join the community which will in turn drive more users. While your new feature of being able to pay $4.00 to upload a video to my other TiVo friends is nice, $0.00 for YouTube is nicer. I doubt that new feature will drive subscriptions. Every time you increase the TiVo subscription rate you make me analyze my TiVo usage. Do I pay $20.00 a month for TiVo or $7.00 a month for a lesser DVR that still does HD and time-shifting? If I had a community that I was vested in, if I had Internet television channels as well as traditional television channels then it would be much easier to justify $20.00 a month. I do pay the $20.00 a month so you clearly have something I want, but making it an easier decision would be nice. Just my $0.02.