I've had my Tivo for about two months now, and I've noticed a few interface pieces that could stand to be copied by other industries.

One of the cool things Tivo does is keep track of the shows you like. During a show you can hit a 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' button and Tivo will remember that you do or don't like that show (and will try to use that knowledge to guess what other shows you might like or dislike, but that's tangental here). When a Tivo has extra space, it'll fill it with the kind of shows it thinks you like and, other than some erroneously perceived desire for '80s Steve Gutenberg movies, it does a pretty good job.

Checking CNN this morning, I wished thier site had a similar feature. Wouldn't it be nice if you could quickly and easily customize the news, not by going to a profile page and checking 'politics' and unchecking 'baseball' (or what have you), but instead by indicating likes and dislikes in-situ?

For example, wouldn't it be cool if one click on the tiny thumbs down icon next to the lead story about the GOP convention would ensure that I wouldn't have to read about the convention, protests, and counter-protests for the next week? One click and 'boom!' no more Jon-Benet Ramsey stories, Bye-bye O.J.! Elian, I hardly knew ye.

And of course, one click on the thumbs-up would result in more features about Linux, the Space Shuttle, the Concorde, and two headed cock-fights. For example.

The web gives every information soruce the chance to become a person's ideal information source, but as much flash as CNN has and as much realvideo as ABC can stream to your door, it's still a choice of which channel to watch, instead of the ability to really make your own.