We're shutting down Couchville

[rakeshagrawal]

In the week or two, we'll be taking our free TV listings website, Couchville (http://www.couchville.com/), offline. At least for now, this is the end of the road for any kind of a free TV listings website from SnapStream.

For the Couchville loyalists out there, we're sorry to take the site away from you. If you're wondering why we're making this move, simply put, it doesn't make business sense for us to keep the site running.

So thanks to everyone who blogged about the site, spread the word, wore the t-shirt, and, most importantly, used the site day after day. TV recording software for consumers (and now for businesses too with SnapStream Enterprise) has always been more of our 'thing' and that's where we intend to keep our focus.

[Nick Burns]

It was a great ride while it lasted.

Thanks for the great service!

I'll be sad to see it go.

EDIT:

I just told my wife about this. She's none to happy either.
She said it was one of those sites that "just works".

[Darkk]

rakeshagrawal,

I won't bark on the decision to take it offline but I was wondering how it is generating any kind of revenue stream when I don't see any kind of advertisements to help pay for it's operating costs? There are alot of positive reviews about that site which probably generated alot of traffic and I saw alot of opportunities to actually make money off of this venture.

Honesty Rakeshagrawal, your company built a very reputable name in the PVR business and alot of people trusted you with that name. It's a shame that the company as a whole didn't promote it enough or signed up with the big names to help promote the business.

Sadly, if this trend continues I will have to wonder the fate of BeyondTV.

I will keep using it until it breaks.

Darkk

[spaceghost]

Is the reference to couchville.com going to be taken out of the configuration instructions for the HD HomeRun?

[nanook105]

Hopefully, some of the effort/code can be salvaged as a replacement/upgrade to ss.net.

[cfaslave]

Disappointing for these reasons:

1. The site had real potential. Would have loved to see something like it integrated into SS.net
2. Snapstream used up some valuable time and resources working on a project that is being dumped.

In the long run it obviously makes sense to focus on your core business and projects that will help your business and probably BeyondTV focus as well so I understand the decision.

[nrf]

I think that would be called 'sunk cost', decision made looking forward not back. Anyway, it seems that Snapstream is in a 'downward spiral' as far as ordinary users are concerned. Between this and the pitiful lack of exciting new offerings in the 2008 plan, I am preparing for the inevitable demise of this product line and its support. Note that we are a 2-pvr family so I fear not for this loss.

Snapstream, note that customers will usually be willing to pay for exciting new features so if you are thinking we are a bunch of selfish slobs, you are wrong! Enthusiasm and energy can generate revenue! But what I see here is turning your back on us.

[Voxelflinger]

I used Couchville a few times and there were some nice things about it.

I like the ability to customize the line up.
I loved the jump to channel feature.

The problem I had is whenever I wanted to know what was on TV I was drawn to fire-up BTV or BTV Link to view the listings!

Ok, so I used Couchville to view at work but Yahoo and MSN have the same listings as do most ISP homepages.

What made me use BTV or link and wait for the program to start up? I could decide that moment to record a show. Most of the time I use Link from the bedroom to do most of the programing to BTV. For the more detailed stuff I use the web admin.

I would like to see some of the custom features or the jump to added to BTV. Even a buttons for my x number of favorite channels would be nice.

Couchville was nice and fast but I could not get myself to use it as much as BTV or Link.

[rakeshagrawal]

Originally Posted by Darkk

but I was wondering how it is generating any kind of revenue stream when I don't see any kind of advertisements to help pay for it's operating costs?

You don't have to look too hard to see the ads on the site.

Originally Posted by Darkk

Sadly, if this trend continues I will have to wonder the fate of BeyondTV.

I will keep using it until it breaks.

If anything, shutting down Couchville should be an indicator to you that we're even more focused on our PC DVR business. That's one of the benefits I see of our making this decision.

[rakeshagrawal]

Originally Posted by cfaslave

Disappointing for these reasons:[LIST=1][*]The site had real when it had some real potential. Would have loved to see something like it integrated into SS.net

This is still something that could happen. SnapStream.Net isn't going away -- it's just the free TV listings website that's going away.

[cfaslave]

Originally Posted by rakeshagrawal

This is still something that could happen. SnapStream.Net isn't going away -- it's just the free TV listings website that's going away.

Understood. I should point out that while I liked Couchville and think its cool, I would much prefer Snapstream focus on BeyondTV and the core functionality of BTV when you're dealing with limited resources. I wasn't clear on that in my first post above.

[ZetaVu]

I too was hoping coucheville could be incorportated into BTV as a way of getting additional information for shows in the guide, so if we click a show, we could hav ethe option to display online info for the show based either on the name or recording time/channel. Of course this could be done with IMDB and tv.com, but such a feature is what I envisioned as the next step for couchville, that and a subscription guide service people with freeware htpc's could use (myth, MP) as that represents another revenue stream.

[pvrguy]

Say it isn't so...really early April fool's...

The one main thing I will miss is the New indicator...How about adding that to SS.net?

[chez-chair]

Thanks for the experience, anyway...the interface has a lot of features I'd love to see somewhere...
I look forward to seeing the results of your focussing more on SS/BTV.
I have U-Verse running on a Media Center PC - neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring. Despite 25+ years in computers and media, I am overwhelmed with the array and amalgam of technologies-hope you can make some kind of coherent interface for us!

Best wishes!

[chillexistence]

would you consider keep it running and accessible to those who have a SnapStream.net account, because the Guide on SnapStream.net sucks and doesn't work half the time compared to this service!