Why TiVo's Founders Crashed and Burned With Qplay

Velcroman1 (1667895) writes "Michael Ramsay and Jim Barton created a revolution with TiVo, a device that challenged the notion that we had to watch TV shows when they aired. And they hoped to do it again with Qplay, a device that challenged the notion that short-form videos had to be consumed one at a time, like snacks instead of meals. Qplay streamed curated queues of short-form Internet video to your TV using a small, simple box controlled by an iPad app. So what went wrong? Unlike TiVo, the Qplay box was difficult to justify owning, and thevalue of the service itself is questionable. And as of last week, Qplay is closed."

Re: Nothing went "wrong"

[geekoid]

nothing says disaster like 289 million dollars a year and a constantly trending upward stock price

Re: Nothing went "wrong"

[UpLock]

16 year old company has had two profitable years--both due to patent settlements. It has half the subscribers it had ten years ago and four times the employees. It may be a great device but it has always been a lousy business for post-ipo investors.