The Philips Ad Enforcer

While the growth of on demand media is everywhere through VOD, DVR, iPods, RSS.... Philips has a patent pending for technology that would prohibit people with Tivos and DVRs to fast forward through commercials.

While some have already said that this looks like one step closer to a Clockwork Orange advertising model where we all have our eye lids peeled back and our faces locked in place in front of the television screen, I think it is more of a sign of advertisers' ignorance than anything else.

If this technology was ever actually put into place, customers would run away from your product as fast as they possibly could, with me leading the stampede. You can't give customers all the benefits of a digital video recorder, only to realize how much you have pissed off your second most important public, your advertisers, and have to take it away and lose your most important public, your own customers.

With Tivo secretly deleting certain shows after a designated amount of time and this new emerging technology developed by Philips, I'm not even sure how I feel about cable in general anymore. I've got Netflix, podcasts, IPTV, and Comedy Central's Motherload do I even need to be shoveling out another $50 a month just for a bucket load of channels I rarely watch and better reception? Hmm.... I'll have to get back to you on that one.

-Jamie