Suggestion for @ComcastCares

Walking to my car after work on Tuesday, the thought occurred to me... Comcast should offer text-messaging. I'm not sure why I thought that - I already have text messaging through AT&T and Google Voice, I'm not sure I *want* text messaging on my home phone.

But this little piece of inspiration wouldn't be dismissed that easily. "Hear me out," it seemed to beg. And the more I thought about it, the more I could see where it could be quite handy, quite cool, quite useful, and possibly save me or others some money.

Comcast would be onto something pretty big if it offered text messaging free as part of its triple-play offering. It would be throwing down the gauntlet and declaring that "Text messaging is no longer just for cell phones."

Comcast already has the infrastructure to offer it for free.

First, it's got the backbone. There may be interconnectivity charges, but it's already paying those to be part of the voice and internet networks.

Second, it's got ways to get the texts to you and allow you to create texts. They could build it into the DVRs and cable boxes, they could build it into their website, they could build it into the app you can download that gives you caller ID information on your computer, and they could build it into their Xfinity iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch apps. You could get texts anywhere you had a WiFi signal.

(Heck, they might even experiment with voice recognition and transcription and then those turtles with their lowly rotary phone could even use it.)

It would be cheap, easy, and worth some pretty compelling media buzz.