This week marked an important symbolic event in the evolution of portals and broadband, where Comcast launched it's revamped portal for its broadband subscriber base. You can get to some of it here: http://www.comcast.net, though will need a Comcast user account to experience some aspects of the service. What's notable here is the increasing use of rich media and rich Internet applications (RIAs) in general, as demonstrated with some of their content regions, the Fan (a movie trailer viewer), and the Assistant, a expanding UI element. I think more symbolic, though, is the fact that the shift of subscribers to broadband represents a potential shift of consumers away from their existing portal relationships (Yahoo, AOL, MSN, etc.) and towards relationships directly with their broadband suppliers. This in turn is driving the major broadband carriers to either partner (e.g. SBC/Yahoo, Verizon/MSN) or build out a new franchise based on their own original content, applications and innovation. As the largest broadband supplier in the world, Comcast is well positioned to try and build out their own user communtiy and franchise. It will be interesting to continue to track their work in this space.
3:55:54 PM 
|
|
