Comcast Roundup: Agreement with CBS, ABC and Fox, the Trail Blazers object 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.

DEFINITE READS

• Updated  7/9/10 @ 9:04 a.m.: The Los Angeles Times reports that Comcast has promised $20 million in investment capital for minority-owned businesses as a condition of its deal for NBC.
• Los Angeles Times Company Town blog reports that Comcast has reached an agreement with CBS, ABC and Fox stations over its proposed acquisition of NBC, hoping to eas regulatory approval.
• A Forbes blog speculates on why Netflix should be an $82 stock, comparing it with Comcast.
• Visiting Princeton University Law Professor Susan Crawford writes on her blog about a Comcast-NBC deal public filing from NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, who reported the organization fears further consolidation would allow Comcast unfair control for local sports.
• The Huffington Post has a piece on net neutrality and how Comcast inspired one activist for the cause.

Below, net neutrality lobbyists, Comcast works with the Banana Republic on ‘Mad Men’ wear and more.

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David L. Cohen, Comcast Executive Vice President, talks Comcast, taxes and startups

David L. Cohen doesn’t run Comcast.

He didn’t run the Rendell mayoral administration either, and he doesn’t run the University of Pennsylvania or the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, nor does he have any of the titles that put him as the figurehead of any of the organizations that his fingerprints are on.

But he’s always in the conversations.

The Comcast Executive Vice President who spent much of the early 1990s as Ed Rendell’s mayoral chief of staff — as immortalized by Buzz Bissinger’s noted book ‘A Prayer for the City‘ — and before it had a private law career is as well-connected as they come.

So, Cohen, who is also the chairman of both the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and the University of Pennsylvania, has a unique vantage point on the region’s technology, political and cultural vanguard. Below, Cohen talks to Technically Philly about bolstering college graduate retention, the true affects of the NBC deal and why that purchase has something to do with Vietnam.

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Ten Philadelphia competitors and their January Web traffic

Click to enlarge.

Perhaps one of the most influential realities of the Web is metrics. The details of traffic and audience online have so rapidly become expansive that they have likely not yet been entirely harnessed.

Arguments still rage around the accuracy and importance of a myriad of Web analytics, but, away from page views, an increasing standard is to compare sites by their monthly unique visitors, though that number’s efficacy has no doubt come into question.

Until now, very little attention has been paid publicly to comparing Philadelphia’s many competitors by way of traffic comparison. With the first numbers for 2010 released this month by public Web analytics company Compete, Technically Philly decided to compile the first such digest.

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