Don’t put down that TiVo remote:

TiVo Inc. and Yahoo Inc. on Monday launched a service that allows TiVo users to program their digital video recorders remotely using Yahoo’s television information Web sites.

While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the companies said that in the coming months TiVo and Yahoo would also offer Yahoo services like photos, traffic, and weather as part of their collaboration.

Attaching a computer to your TV is a great idea because it allows you to do all sorts of things you could never do before. The only problem is that building a computer is a relatively mundane task easily assembled from off-the-shelf components. Now nearly every cable and satellite system offer their own “TiVo-like” boxes that have most of the same capabilities. TiVo has been trying to bypass the cable and satellite distribution networks for a while now. For example they announced their plan to allow TiVo boxes to download certain TV shows from an internet connection without any need to “record” a show from cable/satellite.

Perhaps this is the first step in TiVo bypassing the traditional networks of distribution. However, replacing cable and satellite with Yahoo! is just exchanging one content provider for another. We here at BBB would like to see a TiVo that can go anywhere on the internet, wouldn’t you?