Alex Goldman has an interesting article on Earthlink and its plans to be a “broadband” provider sans content. Why bother, Alex argues, and points to Excite@Home disaster.

ISP-Planet: “Michael Lunsford, EarthLink’s Executive Vice President of Marketing and Product, says that the company in the past has failed to merge its marketing strategy with its products. In many cases, innovation has been ahead of advertising and pricing. To change that, he is re-imagining EarthLink’s mission. Lunsford feels that the competition, such as AOL and MSN, are looking for content strategies and leaving behind their core competence in infrastructure. Rereading Om Malik’s thoroughly enjoyable (though slightly flawed) book Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist, we find Malik arguing that this is exactly how @Home was destroyed (in Chapter 7: Nobody@HOME). Excite@Home was far less than the sum of its parts.” (Thanks Alex!)

[Via The Feature.]