TiVo is facing a lot of competition. On the DVR front, their partner DirecTV and other cable and satellite providers are making their own boxes. On the media center front, they’re facing Windows Media Center and Apple’s upcoming Intel Mac mini. TiVo is going to have to offer more than just a brand to fight off the cheaper DVR’s and fully-featured media centers.

So it made sense when TiVo partnered with Yahoo last month. Originally, this deal was so you could program your TiVo through Yahoo. Now, owners of stand-alone TiVo’s with internet access (some 300,000 TiVo owners), can view traffic, weather and personal photos from Yahoo Inc .

And that’s not all, TiVo has now partnered with Fandango to allow you to order movie tickets right from your TiVo.

Also, their partnership with Live365 gives you the ability to ability to listen to Internet-based programming, or podcasts.

TiVo definitely is going to have a big battle to fight over the next few years. Especially when you consider one of their competitors is Microsoft. And Microsoft has definitely found a way into households with the Windows Media Center-enabled XBox 360. Hmm, maybe Microsoft losing $126 per XBox 360 isn’t such a crazy idea after all.

And yeah I’m a little bitter this is yet another feature we DirecTV owners will not have. You guys suck.

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