This is a pretty big discussion in the cable industry as DVRs (i.e. TiVo) are really screwing with the ad based revenue model. This was discussed in depth back at the industry's Emerging Technologies conference in January. One of the suggestions floated there, which I think we'll see more of than the alternate sampling suggestion you mention, is that each ad includes a splash screen embedded in the content.

A DVR is basically just a simple media computer. There are programming languages / standards over them, so you can send meta data with the video feed. Meta data for an ad would include a splash screen and when fast forwarded, the DVR would display a single static ad rather than the ad in fast forward.

I think you'll start to see a growing similarity with online ads in the future. It will be possible to dig in to an ad that you're interested in to get more data, link to a web page, opt in for an email, or "star" an ad to come back to / replay later. This is part of the reason network television is making content available online. People want content on demand and without ads. The web based ads used with online delivery mechanisms can be much more interesting and interactive. You also get significantly more input from your users as you can track click through rates, level of interaction with the ad, etc., providing a much better gauge of the effectiveness of the ad.

Kind of tangentially related, check out this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129. If you haven't seen it before, it'll be the coolest thing you see today. The related part to this discussion is the advertising usage of this technology that's discussed at about 1:52 in to the video.

Hey Tim,

You write that we're going to start seeing this kind of thing in the future. I guess I'm surprised that we're not already seeing it. As your comment shows, there are a lot of people (like you) who understand this a hell of a lot better than I do. I guess it takes time for an industry to adapt however.

Thanks for the link to the TED talk, I'll make sure to watch that this afternoon.

The issue has been the standardization of the technology. While the "video feed looks different in fast forward" is a simple enough idea, the implementation is non trivial. When you fast forward video, the DVR samples the video feed and flashes up pictures. Obviously, the frame you are looking at when you select fast forward will effect the frames that you then sample afterwards, so you couldn't just fast forward the video and expect to get something meaningful every time. It wouldn't surprise me to find that different DVRs even have different ideas of 2x, 3x, and 4x fast forward speeds. Even if the difference is minuscule, it would be sufficient to cause a ton of headaches with the advertising mechanism.

So TiVo started out the whole DVR craze, but now the DVRs are just made by companies like Scientific Atlanta, Motorola, Arris, etc. They've each got their own implementation and are sold through the cable companies (and satellite, but my experience all lies in cable). It took a while for them to really take, but it's been pretty clearly proved that this is a great technology that has had good adoption rates and will continue to do so.

So the cable companies want to leverage the new technology they've got sitting in your home, but each box is a little different so the standards committees start to come together and they come up with (eventually) OCAP (OpenCable Application Platform). Once the standard is together it takes a while for people to understand it and build applications and then a little longer for them to start being leveraged. The industry has started building applications, but they haven't reached the critical mass to get large scale deployments / use from the buyers (advertising agencies).

My guess is that we'll start seeing it really soon.

Tim, you were right; that WAS the coolest thing I've seen today, and it's been an amazing day so that is saying a lot. Seriously, thanks for sharing. I work with digital images for a living (mostly in the context of mapping), and I can think of all sorts of amazing applications for this technology in my field alone! I will definitely be sharing this link.

And Ben, as much as I hate to admit it, I agree with you. If advertisers were targeting TiVo in the manner in which you suggest, even I would go looking for their ads. And I HATE being bombarded with advertisements. ANY technology that would make someone like me actively seek out advertising would be beyond brilliant.