Point taken and respect the insight of the group. As these conversations are public and your page allows for comments, I presume you look to provoke thought and conversation.

I appreciate the insight your group provides, hope you appreciate the feedback.

The Gilmor Gang is a conversation. I learn from each of its members. Mike Arrington has a world view that, when intersected with Farber, Scoble, Calacanis, and others, produces insights that cannot be assigned to any individual, particular myself. Yet the benefits are real. I’d look more carefully at the sum of the conversation than you appear to be doing.

my comments are that Arrington argues on the surface, like your comments: Comcast doesn’t do anything interesting. while a cable subscriber like you and i can get away with saying that, a self professed authority in the tech world with contacts up the wazoo should at least be able to argue at a strategy level, which he didn’t and couldn’t. it was a waste of time having him on here.

the thing is, just because Comcast’s HQ is in Philly doesn’t mean they don’t have talent on the west coast. and maybe the business guys are wow’ed by anything but that doesn’t mean they won’t send someone else to do due dilligence. and just because Plaxo powers an existing email service doesn’t mean that’s all their applications can do, nor does it mean Comcast spent 100+ million just to get some email servers. think about it.

the thing is, as an insider, after reading Arrington’s posts on Hulu and some others, it appears that his instincts are mostly correct on startups. but when it comes to companies who play in complex spaces, he’s really off because he never gets below the surface. and not only that, he’s not willing to put in the time to understand. i mean who can blame him, if using his assumed authority on the tech industry to bully and critize (controversy=higher ratings) instead of using his connections to fully understand strategy and business models gets him on the cover of Time, what choice does he have??

no one denies that Michael Arrington has sway, but then again, so does Bill O’Reilly.

For how many of you write about sites/services/software/companies adding value and being user-friendly, please take the time to clean up your own stuff. The first part of the conversation was absolutely painful to listen to. Didn’t listen to the rest. I’m sure I missed out on some good thoughts but it wasn’t worth continuing to listen to find out.

“comcast does not know what they are really doing” - how true it is - especially when it goes away from their core cable business.

“people using comcast mail are not the best prospects for plaxo” - true again!

the only reason for them buying plaxo - comcast likes to own every technology they use - thats just their style. they paid 80 million to buy the platform - why - because the platform builit the shitty “the fan”. now they buy plaxo - why - because plaxo did some integration with comcast address book. That should give people a frame of reference for the “visionaries” at comcast.