Re: [mythtv-users] Cornucopia of the Commons

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 17:37:00 -0700

I understand such concerns but there are several reasons why I suspect the danger of this is quite limited.  First, MythTV users are such a small fraction of the total viewers that I can't imagine TV stations would think it was worth the effort.  Second, there is no demographic information being included here so even if they thought there were enough people participating to warrant biasing their current activities in this area with the additional information, the age and total income of the viewer is, from my understanding, a key factor in weighting this information and they wouldn't have that.  Granted, people who build MythTV setups probably do fall into a group that is considered to have disposable income so I suppose they might just take this on faith.  Third, I suspect that most MythTV builders probably run counter to most programming so if anything, it would probably bulk up the long tail.  Finally, as far as targeting advertising...this is MythTV...it would be totally ineffective.

As I said, I understand these concerns but I suspect the benfits to MythTV users would out weigh the potential disadvantages.

--
Mike

On 8/10/05, David Maher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I would be worried about information about our viewing habits being exploited by unscrupulous advertisers and by tv stations to target advetising at particular groups and possibly to further reduce the diversity of tv programming, by programming more of the "most watched" programs 
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Dean Collins
Sent: Thursday, 11 August 2005 8:07 AM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: RE: [mythtv-users] Cornucopia of the Commons

Hi Michael,

Yep, I have already posted several times about how I would like to fund some type of imdb style rating /review system just for myth tv users with no reply.

 

Dean

 

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Michael Tiller
Sent: Wednesday, 10 August 2005 5:56 PM
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: [mythtv-users] Cornucopia of the Commons

 

I was sitting around contemplating my MythTV setup the other day and it occurred to me that with the number of deployed MythTV boxes, there should be some really interesting "social" possibilities.  Perhaps this has already been discussed, but it seems to me that the open nature of MythTV would make these relatively easy to add.

The specific case I was thinking about was what to watch on TV.  TiVo has its suggestions capability and I do miss that.  But MythTV could do much better.  Instead of looking at my viewing habits and trying to guess what I'd like, what if you looked at my viewing habits and then compared them with viewing habits of other MythTV owners?  If you were somehow able to compile all the viewing information (in an opt-in, privacy friendly way of course), then you could pretty easily identify patterns.  So if I record "Law & Order" and "Numb3rs" and it notices that most people who record those shows also record "The Closer" then it would point that out to me.

This could be just like the online commerce approach of "people who bought this also bought...".

This kind of capability wouldn't just have to rely on past data, it could see into the future.  It could recognize patterns in what people with similar interests will record in the future.

I wonder if commercial identification could work in a similar way...combining information about what the various commercial identifying algorithms identified along with information about what parts of a program people fast-forwarded or skipped through to create a nearly definitive map of a broadcast (of course, this requires that time pass and some people have already watched the episode, but I'm just brainstorming here).

As I said, perhaps this has been discussed before, I don't know.  I thought it was an interesting idea and reflects many trends in how social data is being handled (e.g. http://del.icio.us).

If I had the time, I'd probably try and implement something myself.  But being overcommitted already with other obligations, I'm afraid I have little to offer such a project except perhaps some ideas, user feedback and encouragement. :-(

--
Mike


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