From the article:
For Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts, the key challenge in today’s digital video world is how to become the Google of television.
Roberts, who heads the nation’s largest cable TV provider, said broadband Internet makes the traditional cable TV business obsolete. As a result, he said, Comcast is stressing its on-demand video service, which enables customers to view movies and programs whenever they want.
Well, I have to say, this is pretty clueful of Mr. Roberts, who has always impressed me as the most forward looking cable guy out there.
Part of Comcast’s strategy is to become more like Google by making it easier for customers to search for the video content they want, when they want. One part of that strategy is developing a more robust interactive TV viewing guide. Roberts stressed that these technologies must be easy to use.
Note to Roberts: If your current interactive cable guide (which I suffer through daily) is any indication, you have *a lot* of work to do on user experience/user interface. Comcast has never, ever, ever been in the user experience business, it’s been in the distribution business. If you’re serious about competing in search and experience, it’s time to get serious about UI/UE/HCI. Tivo, for example, is pretty good at this….yet even Tivo’s search is terrible by comparison to any web based search engine. I know there are design constraints to doing great search on a TV, but sheesh, this is structured search, for goodness sake. It should be *easier*!