In 2007, Comcast - like almost every other media company - was eyeing the opportunities created by the marriage of video and broadband Web services. As the largest provider of cable TV and broadband services in the U.S., Comcast already had a leading brand in the world of video entertainment, direct relationships with millions of households, and strong partnerships with the networks. Comcast's challenge was to parlay those strengths into a presence in the next entertainment frontier: direct delivery of video entertainment to customers over the Internet.
Comcast's answer to that challenge was Fancast.com. Comcast partnered with Method to create a site that offered unique features for discovering, managing and consuming professional video available, including traditional broadcast media, previews, and web exclusives. The site provides unique tools for discovering content, including the award-winning "six degrees" content browser, which offers a fun and fluid way to find videos by tracing connections by actor, medium, and keyword. The site rewards repeat visitors by intelligently discovering user's preferences: By paying attention to a user's searches and choices, the system learns what content to feature in its listings to make the system more personal and useful with each visit.
Method was involved from the naming and branding process through conceptualization and design of the product to development of the rich internet applications that drive the site. Specific deliverables included identity, user experience, advertising and sponsorship models, visual design, and front-end development. Much of Fancast was developed using an AJAX/Flash hybrid technology for smooth and responsive interactions. We conducted user tests to ensure the friendliness of the site's unique interfaces. The technical infrastructure was built and documented to an exacting standard to allow a seamless nation-wide rollout to Comcast's tens of millions of customers. Beyond scalability, many of the interfaces were designed to be portable to set top boxes, allowing Comcast to continue to blur the lines between the Web and traditional television interfaces.