May 13, 2002

1:17 PM

TiVo fanatics will know the name of TiVolutionary (Richard Bulwinkle), the official TiVo evangelist who helped create one of the most enthusiastic (independent) user communities ever at AVS Forums. Well, he's either quit or been fired.
posted by luser (2 comments total)

Wow. That's big news for those of us Tivo users who frequented that forum. He was the Tivo's online voice and built a great customer relationship with each of us. Methinks this doesn't bode well for the company...
posted by Dirjy at 2:51 PM on May 13, 2002

A sad event for TiVo fans; RB's liaisoning will be missed, whatever the reasons.

The AVS TiVo community has become one of those amazing product terrariums where:
- company reps walk and talk (mostly) free among us regular joes
- risk-takers can freelance as QA testers
- curious onlookers can arm themselves with unfiltered pre-sales data
- customers freely input usability metrics and feature prioritizations
- spinoff products and services emerge quickly, and triumph or fail quickly
- products stay extensible and sum out to much more than their parts
- satisfied customers are stuck like glue

Talk of the so-called "New Economy" always leaves a bad taste of snake oil in my mouth, but if there is such a thing, it's at places like these.

It reminds me a lot of the Unofficial Empeg (Rio Car) BBS. Sadly, in this case, a highly active support community still wasn't enough to keep another insanely-great product from the corporate axe.

Hope the TiVo Guide subscription doesn't run dry... But I'm stretching a point. Good luck, RB. Stay active.
posted by skyboy at 4:31 PM on May 13, 2002