An old media company like Comcast does something right online

If you’re a geek like me you know that it’s the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas right now and every morning while CES 2008 is running I’ll be cruising through all the news online looking for objets d’art for the Technophile. Today while reading a New York Times article on Comcast’s upcoming CES announcement I was taken aback in a really good way by a company that I’d least expect innovation from – the good ol’ cable company.

Long the bastion of horrid customer service, boring products, and technically poor image quality, the decrepid old U.S. Cable company Comcast has a new vision of cable T.V. that sounds pretty darn good. Even better, their online strategy is shockingly coherent. How? They’ve launched a free T.V. network online called Fancast that’s open to anyone, not just Comcast subscribers, where you can watch T.V. shows for free – on demand. We’re talking about some good T.V. content – not just old reruns. They’re also reaching out and integrating content from elsewhere on the web (like iTunes and Amazon), so it’s not the typical walled garden so popular with old media companies like Comcast.

They have some really interesting plans in store for the near future for both Fancast and their digital T.V. service.

I hate to admit it, but I’m happy for Comcast – and us.

[tags]Comcast, Fancast[/tags]