Comcast Launches Beta Version Of Its Fancast
By Rafat Ali - Thu 09 Aug 2007 09:58 PM PST
Comcast (Nasdaq:CMCSK) has quietly launched a slow and slightly buggy version of its Fancast site, in beta. This site is supposed to be its ambitious online video guide and portal, marking its first major product open-Web project outside of its still-limited Comcast.net portal. The company announced plans for Fancast after it acquisition Fandango, the online movie tickets sales and info site, earlier this year. Fancast is supposed to be a “site that not only would help people find programming across multiple platforms but would deliver some via its own player”, and that mean full length TV shows and movies as well. For now, it has some video clips, a searchable database of information on TV shows, movies, actors and directors...the TV-grid listings are provided by Tribune Media Services, reports Multichannel.
The site, down the line, will also provide full-length TV shows from Comcast’s own networks as well as video on NewCo, the NBC-Fox video joint venture (Comcast is part of that network). The key for Comcast is that it won’t just point to its own services, but other cable/satellite and video distributors. Would still be a tough going on making it a destination site.
