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Comcast's Internet Strategy Stuck In Summer Repeats
from the comcast! dept
Ever since Comcast's failed attempt to merge with Disney, it's been no secret that the company still buys into the idea that marrying distribution and content is a good idea. Now the company's ambitions are getting attention again, as it's making clear signals that it wants to be a full-fledged portal a la Yahoo. Already its web services, based at Comcast.net, are widely used by its broadband customers (or so the company claims), as is its online video service dubbed The Fan. But its belief that it can turn its web properties into popular services on a national level is based on the idea that Comcast is in the best position to aggregate video content. While it may have a leg up over a site like Yahoo, in negotiating deals with TV networks (simply due to its already-existing relationships with them), it's hard to see the company doing anything but trying to re-invent cable TV online -- something the cable industry has tried before, and with pretty disastrous consequences. Combined with the fact that Comcast has little brand recognition outside of its service area, such a plan will probably result in a lot of wasted effort.
Reader Comments
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Uhhh, dude, the whole "tubes" thing was a joke....he was referring to a now-famous legislator's comments on Internet "tubes"....look it up...
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They have a portal?
Just kidding, but only a little...
I've been a "Comcast" broadband customer for over seven years. I started with @home and kept migrating as they kept changing hands...
I'm pretty sure that I went to their portal the first day I got it... After that I set my home page to Google and never looked back...
In reality I just had to wait seven years for Google to wrap the portal around the one thing I highly value on the Internet: their search engine.
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Comcast.net Portal = Junk
I am a comcast customer and I have used their portal I think twice. Also I used to use their Personal Web Pages three years ago but then it got so slow it was rediculous.
The only thing Comcast has gotten right is the speed. Everything else of theirs (Comcast Email, PWP, The Fan, Portal, etc) just plain sucks!
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Re: Comcast.net Portal = Junk
I concur... I only use it to check my comcast e-mail when I'm away from home for more than a week... and even then its painful:
You can't type in a url to get to the mail... you have to start from the portal... and then it opens new windows when you try to get to the mail. And I tried to write a message from there once... it was beyond painful.
I can't complain about the actual internet service though not many places actually get 3.5 mbps down and 600kbps up... Oh wait... you mean they have 18 mpbs DSL in Pairs? http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/07/26/HNparishighspeed_1.html
(Look at the bottom of article... it talks about the majority coverage not just the 2.5 Gbps stuff
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et' up
had Comcast for a whole day. just barely 24 hours.
then Time Warner reset my box. now I have time warner cable. yay me? at least I wont have to use the terrible Fan?
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Comcast Acquires YouTube?
Comcast can change the whole equation by acquiring a key web 2.0 portal. My vote is YouTube. Read this: http://sramanamitra.com/blog/344.
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still waiting
Should I be gratified that the technology can address so many issues, broadcast so many programs, forecast so many schedules, and make nationwide coordinations for moving accounts, adding services or should I be angry and frustrated when the service doesn't work. The technician delivers a faulty box, one gets stuck in a bulk subserveint dwelling program, audio and video suddenly drop and two hours and more are spend on the phone, and the client is being transferred from department to department having to reenter their data of account number name and address every time while apology after apology becomes rhetorical and unnecessary and the damn service is still crashed. The technology has internalized itself and beome overloaded and its technicians are overworked and dazed and revert to their own survival and subsistence leaving the client a secondary item that may or may not receive that for what they have hoped for and have paid for. The client is sent down a myriad of garden paths and technician after technician hang up their coats and go home.
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I don't understand any of this?
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