Comcast

I'm guessing if you have digital cable or home phone service in the bay area that Comcast is your provider. Comcast is already the nation's largest cable company according to a cnnmoney.com article. http://mediabiz.blogs.cnnmoney.com/2007/04/11/comcast-goes-to-the-movies/#comments Last Wednesday, April 11, Comcast became even bigger when it purchased Fandango, a website where people can go to check movie times and buy tickets, among other things. Fandango is ranked third in visitors behind moviefone.com and movietickets.com for movie ticketing websites. Comcast seems to be attempting to over take the entire entertainment industry (besides music). They are in the process of creating Fancast.com and they will be using Fandango on the site. The wesite says that users will be able to search for movies, television shows, and watch videos on the website. Also, you will be able to see when a television show is on and you can watch them online, if desired. They want to be the only website that people will go to in order to get any entertainment information. Comcast also recently launched Ziddio.com, which is a Youtube like website. (Ziddio has partnered with facebook too. Comcast also owns a video game website called gameinvasion.net.)
Because of all of these moves that Comcast has made, competition has increased among other companies. Startups like Blinkx and TVeyes, as well as TV Guide have begun working on video search engines to compete with Comcast and other similar sites. The amount of money generated can be enormous. Advertising is key on these types of websites and the more traffic on a website, the more it will cost for a company to advertise on the page. According to Score Media Metrix, last month Comcast had the most traffic on their website with 17 million visitors. (They beat out ESPN, facebook, and craigslist.) It looks like no other competitors even have a slight chance to keep up with Comcast's speed. There is no telling how much power it may have in a few years.