Comments on: Comcast Wants To Be Yahoo

By: GigaOM Who should buy Yahoo? 5 Suitors Handicapped «

GigaOM Who should buy Yahoo? 5 Suitors Handicapped « — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:41:31 +0000

[...] television and the Internet starts to blur together, the idea is back in fashion. Comcast has a burning desire to become a destination for media consumers. But AT&T has longstanding ties with Yahoo through [...]

By: vanderwal

vanderwal — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 21:18:17 +0000

Comcast has some very good folks working on this, but the team is insanely small compared to a Yahoo, AOL, or Google. I am not sure of the depth with social networking/social web and other things that will supply value or if they are building a last generation portal around video.

Comcast is building Google portal as I don't think they will own the content. Yahoo has a lot of content they own. Content owners are fickle and can jump in or out of bed with whomever. Seeing the well done AOL music video service I am not sure Comcast could drop the same thing in place and take away from their market share as MTV seems to be heading to their own portal. If the owners of the content in the channels on Comcast build their own portals and resources (not a gigantic endeavor, outside content hosting and transmission, looking at how quickly a YouTube could get built and into action).

In short Comcast would be many years from competing with Yahoo. Comcast has desperately needed an a much better web offering for their customers. This could be an improvement for Comcast customers, but I doubt it would be a reason to switch to Comcast or keep somebody from moving to another service.

By: Michael Markman

Michael Markman — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 04:37:23 +0000

OK, so a Comcast portal for captive broadband customers seems so Twentieth Century AOL. And Comcast will never supplant Yahoo! But they don't have to. Look at this through a long-tail lens. There's plenty of extra money to be extracted from Comcast advertisers, plenty of content leverage to be extracted from Comcast TV network suppliers, and plenty of triple-play stickiness to bond to customers.

Another way to look at this is as Comcast playing defense. The people who control the TV and movie shows are trying to route around the multi-channel providers with various IP distribution plays (iTunes store, MySpace, Google, direct distribution from their own websites). Google has changing course and is now courting and engaging with the content players. The options for video distribution over IP for viewers, content owners, and advertisers are multiplying. No way that Comcast can afford to sit still and let the world route around cable TV.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 01:20:46 +0000

I agree with Niall. Cable has always been in the business of local advertising sales.

Adding additional tasks (and value?) to the sales force selling slots to local used car dealers can bring in online advertises with local search reach.

By: Jeffrey McManus

Jeffrey McManus — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 21:52:27 +0000

Comcast had a profitable technology portal (techtv.com) in their hands but they pulled the plug on it in the acquisition and G4 rebranding. Huge mistake — they lost literally millions of users.

By: Scott Rafer

Scott Rafer — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 14:07:55 +0000

Why regard this and the network neutrality conversations separately?

For a variety of reasons (e.g. their large profits from backing half.com), Comcast has a pretty good idea about how they might make money off dotcom models. If they succeed in killing net neutrality, both legally and then technologically, they can afford to pursue a Web1.0 model for quite some time -- and they know how. If we innovative web services providers are paying the same kinds of access fees that GYM, et al, will have to, how are the cool Web2 apps going to reach Comcast subscribers?

By: rick

rick — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 13:57:14 +0000

I was wondering when we see the carriers (pipes) get in on the content (portal) game. I figured they would partner with existing portals, similar to AT&T/Yahoo, but this is very interesting.

The gameboard is getting bigger.

By: met

met — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:19:27 +0000

Have they recruited anyone interesting?

By: Keith L. Dick

Keith L. Dick — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 06:44:16 +0000

God has decided he wants this planet back… I think he wants to start over…

Go figure, Stupid is as Stupid Does…

By: Niall Kennedy

Niall Kennedy — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 06:31:11 +0000

Comcast’s network of last-mile routers and location-specific advertising already in place should give it a leg up in the market. Why should Crazy Al’s Used Car lot be restricted to only playing on cable between 2 and 3 a.m.? There are plenty of online buyers too!