Wow Comcast. Well done!

gizmodocom:

Comcast Unlocks Its Wi-Fi Hotspots to Hurricane Sandy Survivors

by Andrew Tarantola

Paywalls guarding the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal fell first. Now Comcast, one of the largest cable operators in the country, has announced that it will unlock thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots along the East Coast to help emergency responders and others affected by Hurricane Sandy.

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This is Ludicrous

It’s obvious that broadcasters, cable, and satellite companies do not understand or care what is happening to television, and more importantly what’s changing in user-behavior. Even though many sports were on NBC’s local station you still had to have a cable or satellite subscription to watch it on mobile, HBO has as many viewers of Game of Thrones as it does people who pirate the show, and there is still no real viable 24-hour news option for cable cutters.

This is ludicrous.

“Causing confusion disturbing the peace this is not an illusion we running the streets…so by bye bye to you groupies and gold diggers…” - “Move B****” by Ludacris featuring Mystikal


Television and cable executives ignore very important facts in the rapidly changing arena of television, and are either ignoring consumer behavior or not listening to their younger employees. So I’ve created a short list of things these executives should look at concerning the changing television landscape as it concerns Gen Y:

1) We don’t care about your brand. If you broadcast our favorite show more often times than not we don’t actually know what day, time or station the show originated from. I have no idea if Community is on ABC or NBC, nor do I care — Key takeaway? Content is all that matters, your brand does not.

2) Okay…Well brands do kind of matter, but not in the way you think. I have Hulu Plus because I can get Community, and Netflix so I have a large library of shows and movies on hand for a cheap price. Those brands matter, not ABC, NBC, Comedy Central, etc. Key takeaway? Content is all that matters, your brand does not.

3) We don’t feel that we should pay for channels we wouldn’t watch. Why would I want to pay for 70+ channels when I only would watch 6 of them — let alone why watch something on your schedule when I can just watch whatever whenever?

4) We hate ads, kind of. Typical TV just shouts to a room about Cialis thinking that somehow resonates for me. If you have an streaming service with ads your ads should be targeted. Every time we see ads that simply don’t make sense to us it is a reminder that the television industry is lazy.

5) If cable/satellite and broadcasting companies don’t change their ways soon you will appear to be obsolete to a younger generation. Getting cable to watch what you want will be like getting AOL to get on the internet.

6) The most important one — take heed. “Don’t forget that Gen Y doesn’t mind paying for stuff that they want as long as you make it available to where we are (i.e. the internet, and internet connected devices), otherwise we will just take it. We grew up pirating and only slowed down because we got jobs (some of us) and can afford the stuff we want, but for those things you folks at the TV Companies don’t let us get easily we will just take it (see Game of Thrones) (see Music Industry). You’ve seen this time and time again, stop restricting, start innovating — and if you are too lazy to innovate stop trying to make it hard for those that are (see Netflix).” - Paraphrased from a HuffPo comment