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.<br>
<br>
As I said, I understand these concerns but I suspect the benfits to MythTV users would out weigh the potential disadvantages.<br>
<br>
--<br>
Mike<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 8/10/05, <b class="gmail_sendername">David Maher</b> <<a href="mailto:dm@netsol.com.au">dm@netsol.com.au</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><span><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial" size="2">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 </font></span></div>
<blockquote style="margin-right: 0px;" dir="ltr">
<div align="left" dir="ltr"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span class="q">-----Original Message-----<br><b>From:</b>
<a href="mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@mythtv.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">mythtv-users-bounces@mythtv.org</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@mythtv.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
mythtv-users-bounces@mythtv.org</a>]<b>On
Behalf Of </b>Dean Collins<br><b>Sent:</b> Thursday, 11 August 2005 8:07
AM<br><b>To:</b> Discussion about mythtv<br></span></font><div><span class="e" id="q_105a2c87205314b1_2"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><b>Subject:</b> RE: [mythtv-users]
Cornucopia of the Commons<br><br></font></span></div></div><div><span class="e" id="q_105a2c87205314b1_4">
<div>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: navy; font-family: Arial;">Hi
Michael,</span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: navy; font-family: Arial;">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.</span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: navy; font-family: Arial;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: navy; font-family: Arial;">Dean</span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: navy; font-family: Arial;"> </span></font></p>
<p><font color="navy" face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: navy; font-family: Arial;"> </span></font></p>
<div style="border-style: none none none solid; border-color: -moz-use-text-color -moz-use-text-color -moz-use-text-color blue; border-width: medium medium medium 1.5pt; padding: 0in 0in 0in 4pt;">
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;" align="center"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
<hr align="center" size="2" width="100%">
</span></font></div>
<p><b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">From:</span></font></b><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma;">
<a href="mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@mythtv.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">mythtv-users-bounces@mythtv.org</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:mythtv-users-bounces@mythtv.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
mythtv-users-bounces@mythtv.org</a>]
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">On Behalf Of </span></b>Michael
Tiller<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, 10
August 2005 5:56 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b>
Discussion about mythtv<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [mythtv-users] Cornucopia of the
Commons</span></font></p></div>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">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.<br><br>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.<br><br>This could be just like the online commerce
approach of "people who bought this also bought...".<br><br>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.<br><br>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).<br><br>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. <a href="http://del.icio.us" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://del.icio.us</a>).<br><br>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.
:-(<br><br>--<br>Mike</span></font></p></div></div></span></div></blockquote>
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