TiVo may soon branch out from its TV roots and into social media with Pique, a still-in-development website that promises to let users aggregate and share their favorite entertainment and news content from “one simple place.”
A TiVo spokesman declined to provide details on the project.
The Pique website currently bears no visible connection to TiVo, informing visitors who register for updates that “we're not quite ready to open our doors.” The domain name is registered to a third-party service; TiVo is the owner of the site, according to text embedded in Pique’s Web pages.
“Suddenly you find yourself in an enormous gallery with digital media in every corner,” the teaser website says. “You’re the curator… You’re the one who puts the word out.”
The site’s tagline: “Collect what you like. Share what you love.”
While it may be just a skunkworks project, the TiVo site includes a sign-in screen for invitation-only beta users as well as a solicitation for anyone interested in working for Pique to submit their resumes.
TiVo filed trademark applications for Pique in June with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, followed in September and October by applications covering the logo.
The Pique filings span five categories: online social networking services; computer services; entertainment services; software development tools; and advertising and marketing services.
The applications describe a website and mobile service that enable users “to share information, participate in discussions, get feedback from their peers, form virtual communities, and engage in social networking featuring social media, photos, images, data, text, videos, audio files, and topics of general interest to such users.”
Pique would let users aggregate content from social networks and websites, enabling them “to interact with information and content of greatest interest to them,” according to the TiVo trademark applications.
One of TiVo’s Pique trademark applications also describes “advertising and directory services” and “promoting the goods and services of others via a website featuring coupons and product reviews for shopping.”
Pique may include user-contributed reviews, according to the filings, which discuss “a community-driven website” with “consumer product information, information on restaurants, information on retail stores, information on business organizations [and] information on service providers.”
