I remember not so long ago when anyone who had TiVo couldn't wait to tell anyone who didn't have TiVo how great the system was -- watch TV when you want to, skip over commercials, record shows easily, blah, blah, blah.

Now TiVo's plans to partner with some the world's largest advertising agencies to offer TiVo users the ability to search for -- and watch -- commercials that they are interested in seeing seemingly turns the TiVo model on its head.  Granted, there must be some way to make people watch commercials.

This reminds me of the old days in Europe when there were certain TV channels that actually showed nothing but commercials.  I never understood why anyone would want to watch them, but given the state of today's TV programming, maybe the commercials are better than the shows?