Contributor Jeanne Rogers talks about a new TiVo innovation -- med-casting -- and what it means for marketing.

Recently, I came across a fairly new TiVo opportunity that surrounds specialty markets and med-casting or medical casting. It is a full TiVo functional box that is deployed to medical specialist for medical training, updates and education that is TiVo-cast specified by the serial number of the TiVo unit. It's a broadband-quality signal, and the med-casting can occur as many times per month as is needed. The cast can be stored for future use without DVD or video storage issues. 

Physicians are busy; specialists are crazy-busy, and the ability to view and re-view and assist in the education of medical procedures that saves lives is an enlightened addition to a proven technology!

Hospitals typically have a Board of Specialists specific to a department in which the education of staff and physicians is a frequent request. The TiVo-casting method certainly evokes convenience, but on the marketing side there is much more to it than that. This is serious productivity value for potential sponsors, including healthcare facilities, medical device and procedure companies. This is business-to-business "product placement" using a very well known branding of a consumer-driven product and service with new direction. 

I spoke with John Reynolds, Sales Manager of Special Markets for TiVo. He believes that "to manage time is a life improvement in general." Now, there are other technologies available such as web-casting. The differentiator with TiVo med-casting is that the viewing is meant for a television screen versus a computer screen. While computer screens have more interactive capabilities, at the end of each TiVo med-cast there will be an opportunity to RFI (Request for information, call me, or this was useful…whatever is necessary). In addition, Reynolds states that interactive enhancement of "casting" -- TiVo or medical -- is coming soon.

Time saving is a value, and innovation surrounding television viewing, according to Reynolds, "was initially a consumer-driven product." He adds, "to interact is to add an interesting extension to that birth." This is not to mention the ability for med-casters to track who actually views the med-casts. Such viewing of important training and education information is also reportable for hospital records (often the titles and salaries of viewers are given to board members).

This TiVo innovation has changed an entire business model of ad-sponsored television and encouraged the next evolution of consumer control and permission-based entertainment and advertising. It has also established a template for other business models to develop a similar opt-in control by their customers.

A recent Fortune magazine article, "Birth of a Salesman" by Daniel Gross, explains that advertising is becoming increasingly disconnected -- from its historical base, its business models and its audiences. Gross is referring mainly to the internet and goes on to say that the internet "is reaching its potential as a selling machine." Who would have considered this potential 10 years ago when online selling launched?

It occurs to me that there are basic technical tools currently that require consideration simply to avoid the risk of falling behind. Jump in while there is still the ability to see clearly that your business has achieved "tech-awareness" and that enhanced thinking can resolve business problems or offer credible solutions.

This leads me to Apple's iPod -- the darling of Wall Street that symbolizes company turn around and the cash cow of an organization. Transferring music and storing your favorite selections to an easily portable unit is simultaneously path-breaking innovation, technology and design. Its purpose? Convenience. And its debatable secondary purpose is leap-frogging past purchasing music to sharing music instead. Again, a change from a long standing business model that includes CDs of an entire "album" compilation to a model that does that but also includes single song downloads.

Moving that further is podcasting -- the downloading of audio/radio programming to an iPod or other MP3 player. Business Week Online calls podcasting a "new convenience".

Now, Kraft foods is podcasting recipes and radio stations are podcasting radio shows. In doing so, what exactly is new media creating? Prolonged branding, product education and brand loyalty -- without advertising and in a subtle format of permission-based, opt-in consumer control.

TiVo's B2B examples aren't far behind the iPod and podcasting. All the pieces are not readily in place, but there is great potential. With the iPod, internal communications come to mind as one example, especially if you are affiliated with the automotive industry and an iPod enhancement is a basic feature of your new car. TiVo-casting cannot be very far behind this.

In the end, it is extremely important to be on a tech watch because, typically, new directions for applications or revised designs participate in a developmental evolution. Or, a process or pattern of movement that -- with judicious observation -- may provide a tech-awareness of useful technology that can be applied to your own business.

Jeanne Rogers is a contributing writer for iMedia Connection. She has been in sales, marketing and new technology development with local cable advertising for 11 years. She is the creator of a new business model for cable acquisition and retention services directly related to interactive television, building subscriber loyalty. She has been a Cable Advertising Bureau (CAB) finalist three times, most recently in 2004 with a CAB win in 2002.