Comcast Roundup: Moving forward with national broadband plan, Cole Hamels shills and More

DEFINITE READS

• The Washington Post has an interview with former FCC chair Michael Powell, in which the agency’s recent battles with Comcast are discussed.
• The Post also reports that leaders pushing for a reform of the national broadband plan are holding strong on the notion that their movement won’t be sidetracked by the recent court ruling that ruled against the FCC having the authority to control Comcast’s bandwidth limitations. An op-ed in the New York Times argues the same point.
• The Post adds depth to the court ruling, though, noting that it may be less a clear victory for Comcast and instead the start of a battleground between the cable giant and host of companies in tangentially related arenas like Skype, Google and Microsoft.

Below, details on Comcast’s 3D taping of the Masters, Cole Hamles breaks plates for Xfinity and more.

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Comcast Roundup: Calling broadband stimulus packages ineligible, Yellow Pages on TV and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

The Inqy’s DiStefano reports that Comcast submitted data yesterday to the federal government suggesting some proposals for broadband stimulus would duplicate its services and effectively subsidize competitors. The Daily Herald adds that the company says that may make those proposals ineligible. Relatedly, a series of Philadelphia proposals for that pot of money came up short.

New York Times media columnist David Carr suggests Comcast’s “likely” bid to buy a majority stake in NBC Universal is foolhardy. If it were to get through, the Inquirer’s Joe DiStefano writes on the undercurrent conversation about whether the federal government would even allow the deal to happen.

After the jump, the latest in net neutrality, video online news and ten other Comcast links to see, including video of Brian Roberts at the Web 2.0 summit.

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Tara Levin: Our new ad-sales manager just might be giving you a call

Please welcome the first new addition to the Technically Philly team.

Last week , Tara Levin came on board as our ad-sales manager, primed to find opportunities to make TP profitable, sustainable and able to continue to grow.

“I believe in the idea of entrepreneurship and that Technically Philly is a worthwhile investment of my time and energy,” she says.

Contact her at tara [at] technicallyphilly.com.

Levin will be making the rounds to talk to businesses and members of the community who are interested in partnering with us and helping make sure we’re here to cover technology, science, innovation and entrepreneurship now and in the future in Philadelphia.

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Introducing our advertising packages

An example of an ad package. Click to see all of the package options.

Over the past few months we have been adding to a long list of advertising options: feed ads, display ads, event listings and job posts are all part of our offerings to regional organizations and advertisers. We admit it can get a little confusing.

To help solve the dilemma, Technically Philly has introduced our advertising packages, an easy way to create a marketing campaign that suits the exact needs of you and your organization using a multitude of advertising offerings.

Hosting an event? Get a calendar listing and a display advertisement with our Events Planner package. Want direct access to TP’s 10,000 readers? Sponsor one of our weekly features or purchase an RSS advertisement.

And that’s just the start of it. Here’s a quick look at our eight offerings which range from a $50/month donation to eye-catching full site wraps.

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Comcast Roundup: Deal with NBC ‘done in principle,’ major security initiative underway and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

Weeks likely still remain before any more actionable steps would be taken in Comcast’s very tenuous, highly publicized possible 51 percent purchase of NBC Universal, according to the Wrap. But, Sharon Waxman reports on the site, there is a deal in principle.

But, folks there’s plenty standing in the way:

• The L.A. Times reports that Vivendi, the French company with a 20 percent stake in NBC, has veto power over any change in majority control and, without any immediate and obvious prospects left on which to spend proceeds from their cut of the deal with Comcast, may choose to hold on to its cut. The West Coast Times also reports that the company has thus far kept quiet about its board’s decision on whether to move or stay.
• Bloomberg reports that it appears Comcast leadership would, if the purchase happened, likely keep NBC’s executive team in place, including the embattled CEO Jeff Zucker, who in his reign has seen the channel go from first to fourth in national ratings and is increasingly getting heat from within the organization.
• Tactics or not, Media Memo reports that Comcast competitor and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes compared this possible deal with the failed merger between his company and AOL in the 1990s.
• Silicon Alley Insider reports that NBC staffers had concerns about seeing their health care coverage change and even worsen in comprehension if the purchase were to happen, though Comcast employees responded quickly in praising their coverage. Such a small flurry of concern does well to exemplify how much would have to go into a deal like this.
• While many of these players have since been dismissed, Forbes last week reported the existence of other potential suitors to unload NBC from its owner General Electric. H/T Philly Tech News

Even in the still very uncertain reality that this high-profile purchase were to occur, a simple majority stake by Comcast would hardly offer even the hint that NBC’s decidedly 67th ward-branded programming would take on any Philadelphia tone.

But, it could, of course, be noted that in recent years NBC has shifted the locations of its Web divisions and some MSNBC functions from Manhattan to New Jersey. While other realities were at play, the dramatic difference in real estate cost between the two surely wasn’t ignored. Philadelphia could prove an even cheaper, yet higher-profile home than the Garden State, with all the other benefits of a major city in between the government and financial capitals of the country, for any such low-profile administrative or other departments.

After the jump, more Comcast-NBC fantasizing, a large Internet security rollout and, yeesh, at least 10 other Comcast stories of note.

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Microsoft finally sells Razorfish for $530 million

Publicis, a French advertising firm with clients as large as Coca-Cola, is the proud new owner of Razorfish.

We’ve been chronicling the plight of Razorfish for a few months now. To recap: Microsoft acquired Razorfish’s parent company in 2007 and has been looking to unload the interactive agency ever since. Razorfish, formally known as Avenue A, has offices all over the world including Center City Philadelphia.

According to the Times of London, Microsoft was in “an unholy rush” to get the deal done so it wouldn’t have to pay scheduled bonuses to Razorfish’s employees.

Details of the deal after the jump.
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Comcast Roundup: Advertising everywhere, executive hockey stars and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup.

2009 may well be remembered as the start of the push for alternative online revenue models.

In a trial that was understandably held in Huntsville, Ala., Comcast found that viewers shown ads targeted to their tastes and demographics watched them nearly 40 percent longer than those who were fed more standard, general interest commercials, as the Associated Press reported yesterday.

According to the AP report, that means viewers can expect to see advertising in lots of new places and often beyond the traditional 30-second variety. Interactive and targeted online-like advertisements that won’t be opted-out and will appear in, say, on-demand video or channel guides.

The advertisers are coming and the coming years will bring about a more directed pitch than ever before.

After the jump, a Comcast executive ice skates his early morning away and the three other Comcast stories you ought to read.

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Comcast Roundup: TV Everywhere balloons, Shaq and Stein are back and More

Every Thursday morning, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup.

Seventeen more cable TV networks have agreed to put their content on Comcast’s TV Everywhere, the proposed online video service that would be offered to subscribers only. That brings the total to 23, according to the Associated Press.

Though some public discourse has remained skeptical of the authentication model, Comcast has continued to move forward with its unprecedented experiment of paid content on the Web.

HBO is in that number of participants. The cable channel recently announced it will put at least 750 hours of its programming on the service scheduled to be rolled out for 5,000 trial subscribers in coming weeks, as reported by the Philadelphia Business Journal. That’s nearly as high profile as the thunder heard after CBS announced it was following suit, as reported by MediaMemo, which followed Time Warner becoming the first big fish in the pond with Comcast. Others, like Starz, added their own buzz.

Details on the security of the system aren’t yet clear, but it’s unlikely 23 networks, including major players like Time Warner, CBS and HBO would join so quickly if something wasn’t clear.

After the jump, more social media praise, a Comcast technician turns to crime and six other stories for the faithful.

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New features for industry social network i-Meet and PhindMe Mobile

Two high-profile, Web-based Philadelphia startups each announced more services to their products recently.

Center City-based, event-planning social network i-Meet.com announced today its partnership with PlannerNet, a service aimed at helping its nearly 10,000 member organizations to find, rate and contract for project-based labor.

That move follows a host of new add-ons to PhindMe Mobile, a mobile Web direct-to-consumer advertising company based at Drexel University’s Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship, which came earlier this month, according to a company press release.

The new service offered by i-Meet, the brainchild of 17th and Oregon’s own John Pino, is said to identify professional meeting and event skills that are available worldwide, helping to match planner experience and projects for event organizers. It’s a move Pino hinted at during an interview with Technically Philly in May.

“In this challenging, economic environment, companies are becoming more inclined to staff their events on a project by project basis,” Pino says in a company press release. “By connecting our worldwide social network to PlannerNet, we’re… delivering qualified talent”

PhindMe’s new features are more varied, ranging from native smartphone applications to Twitter functionality.

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Duck Duck Go launches shopping search filter to test advertising waters

Valley Forge-based Duck Duck Go has updated its snappy, no-frills search engine with the option to filter shopping results.

By typing a query and choosing between shopping, information and normal- mode, you can decide whether you’re looking to buy, looking for info or something in between.

“A top complaint about search engines is that you often have trouble finding real information about topics that have lots of shopping results,” Founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg said in a statement. “We built this new feature to address that problem.”

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 38 percent of users say they are unaware that search results are a mix of search content and sponsored links.

Currently, Duck Duck Go displays no sponsored advertisements, but in an interview with Technically Philly last month, Founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg said the company was planning to monetize the site with ads.
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