TiVo is at it again, reinventing the format, the medium and environment it works in. A easy-to-miss news item talks of how TiVo will have ‘tags’ that appear as small icons on the screen, so that a viewer can click on them with a remote, to find out more.

If advertisers are smart, they will plan for segments when they can create interest in products –like the iPod– on TiVo. Wouldn’t it be ironical if people were to freeze a program in its tracks using TiVo, to watch a demo, or a ‘micro-episode,’ of a product in the storyline?

I like the idea of being able to ‘opt-in’ to advertising. It’s not often that we see a piece of (excuse the phrase) paradigm-shifting technology that could make marketers AND consumers happy.