Early reviews mixed for Comcast TV Everywhere play

As The Washington Post reported today, TV Everywhere is facing a renewed fight from public advocacy groups. And, while FierceIPTV was on break last week, one of the early TV Everywhere offerings, by Comcast under the Xfinity brand, got a tepid review from NewTeeVee. NTV's Ryan Lawler found the authentication process to be problematic and browsing to be a little clunky, though the search function and the video quality overall received higher marks. (A comment attached to the story that appears to be from a Comcast employee attempts to explains the authentication bump that Lawler encountered.)

Meanwhile, Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny had a much smoother experience using the service, though he pointed out that he didn't find much content of interest to him, and had some trouble locating the newest content.

Some glitches and a shortage of choices probably are to be expected from early experiences of any service, so mixed reviews at this point shouldn't be viewed as too scandalous. However, a lot of big name service providers are following Comcast into the TV Everywhere adventure, and it is apparent they all need to work aggressively to make sure such problems don't characterize more widespread commercial launches. It appears that between solving these issues and defending the anti-competitive accusations hounding TV Everywhere, they will have a lot of work to do in coming months.

For more:
- NewTeeVee reviewed Xfinity last week
- Zatz Not Funny also posted a review

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