Yahoo!, TiVo Team Up

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

In a move that may quash any rumors of Google buying TiVo (at least for now), Yahoo! and TiVo today announced a partnership to blend their services.

The ability to schedule recordings from Yahoo!’s TV listings is currently available. In the future, TiVo users will be able to view pictures on the Yahoo! Photos site as well as local weather and traffic information from Yahoo! on their TVs.

According to a New York Times article (free subscription required), DirecTV will not allow its customers with TiVo boxes to access this new feature, perhaps because of the now fragile relationship between the companies.

One sign of the sensitivity is that DirecTV will not let customers who have received its TiVo boxes use the Yahoo scheduling or programming features, even though they do not involve video.

We Say: This isn’t anything revolutionary, as you could program your TiVo from TiVo’s site previously. The key will be future content. The partnership makes sense, as both companies are under pressure to expand their offerings. However, if the information from the New York Times about DirecTV is true (it’s not listed anywhere on the Yahoo! intro page), there are a lot of TiVo users who will be blocked from content.