Web 3.0 & Comcast (Part 3)

Web 3.0 Framework discussion

Below is a quick overview of the Web 3.0 framework for the Comcast sites. We have not gone into the details of all the properties, but you can review the Web 3.0 section of this site for detailed discussions on some of the vertical categories.

Context
Comcast has zeroed in on a few specific contexts, especially in the arena of entertainment. Fandango.com, for example, is a place where consumers go with the primary intent of buying movie tickets. Starting with that context, Fandango fills out the rest of the site’s offerings with movie reviews, theaters where a movie is playing in, etc.

Besides entertainment, Comcast, through its partnerships, have brought together offerings for a number of other major contexts on the web, searching for airline tickets and hotels being a great example. Its partner there is Kayak.

Content
Comcast leverages its strength in television and broadcast programming to develop its sites. E! Online provides information, news, gossips, on music movie and the celebrity space. Gameinvasion.net has a variety of games and provides quality information on the gaming world.

Community
Comcast has been slow in moving into Community. It must regret the fact that it didn’t acquire YouTube but it is trying to make amends by integrating social networking features in its sites. It has entered into an agreement with Facebook to create and share user-generated videos and become part of a new television series titled “Facebook Diaries.”

Comcast.net Community allows users to chat live, make posts and participate in discussions. The forums are organized under broader categories like Lifestyle, TV, Entertainment, Sports, Music, etc. Photocenter allow users to upload, store, share photos and create photo shows. These efforts, however, are somewhat meek, and nothing bold is visible so far in its Community experiments.

Commerce
Comcast has e-commerce features in several of its sites. Various sites retail products that are complementary to the sites’ context. The Photocenter site, for example, retails cameras and printing services. Fandango retails movie, sports and concert tickets.

E! Online and Style Networks retails items like T-shirts, cosmetics, jewelry, lifestyle products, calendars, DVDs, etc. Gameinvasion.net allow users to rent and download games for $8.95 to $49.95.

Personalization
The Fan allows one to create their own playlists, save every into their playlist. Comcast.net Music, Fancast and Ziddio also have some personalization features.

Vertical Search
For Vertical Search, Comcast has mostly partnered with search engine companies like Kayak (for Travel), Vehix (for Auto; Comcast is the largest shareholder of Vehix), PriceGrabber (Comparison Shopping).

Business Model
Comcast earns revenue through e-commerce and advertisements on its sites. It earns commission (revenue share with the respective partners) on vehicles sold through Vehix and tickets sold through Fandango and Comcast.net Travel. It earns revenues from games “rented” or “purchased” through Gameinvasion.net. The recent long-term strategic partnership with Yahoo! will bring scale, experienced sales force, advertiser relationships and industry leading display advertising capabilities to Comcast, which will aid in new monetization opportunities for Comcast, which they seem to need based on the uncertainties hinted during the recent earnings call.

(To Be Continued)

[Part 1] [Part 2]

This segment is part 3 in the series : Web 3.0 & Comcast
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