Archives for April 2010

I've written about the staff get-togethers that the Audio & Music Interactive department have before and why I think they work so well. I've picked out a number of things from the meeting earlier this week to share on the blog.

The BBC produces a vast array of content across all genres and the majority of it is consumed at the time of broadcast whether it's Chris Moyles or the Today programme. One of recurring themes that came up again in Tuesday's presentations is how to make more use of this material outside of this window while giving audiences greater control over how they connect and make use of it.

One simple example of this trend that was mentioned and has had excellent feedback from its audience is the archive section of Radio 4's In Our Time where you can find a quite staggering amount of Melvyn.

While the In Our Time archive goes back as far as 1999 (such as this programme with Daniel Liebeskind in an episode on Architecture in the 20th Century) the 5 live election story (pictured above) pulls together recent segments of the station's coverage by day and topic including debates, interviews and audience comments since the start of the current campaign. It's a logical progression to the department's work on "chapterising" radio's output and how to package the clipped material in a logical and accessible way. (Read more about chapterisation in this post and the 5 live election story in this one.)

A few other things that came up: Hugh Garry demoed ongoing work about enhancing music charts by drawing on additional datasets. While the top forty single listing style hasn't really changed since inception (and what else would you want but a list?) there are lots of cool interactive graphic representations that can be made in additon, how singles are performing over a period of time for example, that reflect the taste and interests of the chart's core audience as well as ways of sharing it with friends. I can't show any of the pictures of this but Hugh will be blogging about this in the next few weeks on the Chart blog.

There was talk about the visualisation work around some radio output that's been going on such as the weekly sports challenge on Chris Evans's show or this video of Gary Numan and Little Boots from last year's 6 Music session.

Also thanks to Dharmesh Rajput from the Asian Network team I now have a much better knowledge (and desire to find out more) about not only Bollywood cinema but also its huge global fan base. You can find out more about Bollywood here and get the Bollywood Player for your own site here.

To round things off James Cridland (above), previously of this parish, talked about his recent tour of radio stations around the world and their forays into digital media, mobile, metadata and much more. James has written most of it up on his blog so rather than paraphrase what he's learnt I'll direct you there.

Elsewhere in the building while James's talk was going on Jem Stone chatted to Tracy Morter and Jon Morter, the people who brought you the Christmas Rage Against the Machine for number 1 campaign, about how they used social media to help achieve their aim. By all accounts it was an insightful session into what you can do with little budget but lots of motivation.

Paul Murphy is the Editor of the BBC Internet blog.

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Ed's intro (PM): Last month Jo Wickremasinghe, the Head of Homepage and Syndication Services, blogged about the new BBC homepage which had just launched in beta. A number of you lamented what appeared to be the demise of the much loved clock on the homepage. This one's for you:

Good news! The clock has returned to the BBC Homepage.

When we launched the Beta Homepage we received feedback from a number of you who missed the clock, so we've turned it into a module allowing you to position the clock where you want it on the page (or shrink it or remove it altogether). It continues as before to show your computer's local time and date.

Read the rest of BBC Homepage: Clock and leave your comments on the Web Developer blog.

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This is just to tell you that Alan Oglvie has published a post today on the Radio Labs blog about a slight format change to the OPML formatted feed for BBC Podcasts:

Because any change to the structure of an XML document like this will probably cause some minor headaches to you - we've set up a new feed in the new format, and kept the old one running for a while. This is notice that in a few weeks we'll simply redirect the old one to the new one. The new feed is available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/opml/bbc_podcast_opml_v2.xml

Read more of the gritty technical detail and comment at Radio Labs.

Nick Reynolds is Social Media Executive, BBC Online

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On the Backstage blog to mark Backstage's fifth birthday Ian Forrester has asked for images and stories related to Backstage to go into a couple of retrospective projects he's putting together. Find out more and contribute at BBC Backstage: five year retrospective.

Two other recent posts on the Backstage blog worth checking out: Data Art on Infosthetics (if you're at all interested in the visualisation of data) and When is a dataset not a dataset? The hackday project that crowdsourced data.gov.uk.

BBC Introducing is the digital equivalent of popping your band's demo cassette into a Jiffy bag and sending it off to John Peel. On the Music blog read Controller of Radio 1 Andy Parfitt on the fact that they've now had 20,000 artists upload 45,000 tracks and why the new way is better than the old.

On his blog at The Guardian website Roy Greenslade writes:

The BBC has refused a freedom of information request to reveal how many people watched its TV drama about freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke.

"...if the BBC answers this one, then it has set a precident that it will answer any, and will promtly get a good thousand of them a year. Suddenly we've spent the better part of half a million pounds. Of course they've knocked the thing back."

Also The Guardian reported on the biggest ever weekend's traffic for BBC News Online

for the 17 to 18 April with more than five million unique users on Saturday and 5.5 million on Sunday.

The MD of Freesat has answered some crowdsourced questions about the service, its future involvement with iPlayer, Project Canvas and lots more on the Join Freesat website.

Paul Murphy is the Editor of the Internet blog.

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The March 2010 BBC iPlayer press pack is now available to download as a PDF: BBC iPlayer Press Pack - Mar 2010.

Here's some highlights chosen by the Comms team:

• Radio requests were highest on record, reaching 33 million requests and TV programmes requests were 84 million
• In total there were 118 million requests across all platforms (both online platforms and devices and BBC iPlayer on Virgin Media TV combined).
• Sport Relief, Wonders of the Solar System and Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds stood out strongly among TV offers, whilst for audio requests the Football Premier League match between Manchester United and Liverpool was the most requested item.
• March also saw the amount of time people spent enjoying BBC iPlayer increase. The average weekly amount of time spent watching TV programmes increased 6% to 68 minutes and the average weekly amount of time spent listening to radio programmes increased 8% to 176 minutes.

Nick Reynolds is Social Media Executive, BBC Online

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When I took on the role of Head of External Relationships in September last year, I was really keen to understand how the BBC was perceived by its online creative partners, and how we could use that insight to add value to our audience offerings and to the market as a whole. I knew we were on track in terms of delivering on our service licence requirements to externally source 25% of our eligible content and services, but I felt this was only half the story. I wanted to find a way to really turn the conversation around and highlight some of the real benefits the BBC's digital presence might have to offer.

So I asked Digital Public to carry out some market survey work, and to market test some ideas that we'd been working on in BBC Online, in collaboration with our online working group made up of industry representatives - the BBC Online Advisory Group. I also asked Digital Public to build a map of services across the UK, and to create a picture of the digital content and services market as a whole, so we could begin to fine tune our approach and engagement in this space. I wanted to know what digital agencies really thought about working with the BBC, and what we could do to build on and improve our creative relationships with them.

What came back was a rich tapestry of views from both agencies and our own commissioners, but with a number of common themes emerging loud and clear. One of those themes highlights a real desire for agencies to work with the BBC - recognition of our values, reputation and brand is a strong positive factor in this. But there's also a clear call for the BBC to stand shoulder to shoulder with its creative digital partners, and to facilitate new opportunities for collaboration outside BBC Online. This is an important insight that deserves some reflection. It's a recognition of the BBC's important but relatively mid-sized presence as a buyer in the digital economy, set apart from its much bigger role in the traditional broadcast media. I think it helps to form a more nuanced view that the BBC is by no means the most important partner of choice for creative agencies as a whole, both in financial terms and in the sometimes mysterious way in which the BBC is seen to engage creatively with the sector as a whole.

So what are we doing now to help digital indies go beyond their relationships with the BBC? One of the ways we're doing this is to provide showcasing opportunities for the wide range of talent we work with, helping them gain wider exposure both in the UK and internationally, whilst fairly crediting those whose efforts help us build one of the most respected and well loved websites in the world. In February, we hosted a showcasing event focusing on design, facilitating discussions with BBC teams and between the 30 digital indies that took part. Today, in Cannes, we're showcasing six of the best digital content producers at MIPTV, providing opportunities for content buyers and others to gain unique insights into both BBC and indie perspectives, as each commissioner and producer unravels the concept and innovation behind each of their projects. We hope to be able to share some of the showcase presentations with you here in the next week or so.

I think this is a great way the BBC can add value to the online marketplace above and beyond its financial contribution. We're working through analysing and addressing all of the feedback we've had from the research we've conducted so far, and we're hoping to implement some important changes over the next few months in collaboration with you (more on that in a future blog). In the meantime, I'd be happy to hear your ideas about how the BBC can do more to add value to its relationships in this space.

Brij Sharma is Head of External Relationships, BBC FM&T.;

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The relaunch of the Doctor Who site featured last week on the Internet blog while today's story is about drugs:

Doctor Who's regenerations 'modelled on LSD trips'

The story's based on an internal BBC memo from 1966, released as part of BBC Archive's Doctor Who collection:

It is as if he has had the L.S.D. drug and instead of experiencing the kicks, he has the hell and dank horror which can be its effect.

The Guardian featured the news that part of the current run of the Doctor would feature a series of downloadable games, quoting Piers Wenger, head of drama at BBC Wales:

'There aren't 13 episodes of Doctor Who this year. There are 17 - four of which are interactive. Everything you see and experience within the game is part of the Doctor Who universe...'

Keeping up the online-and-off-the-TV-screen trend Holy Soap reports that EastEnders' online spin-off E20 will return later this year in another series.

On the 5live blog interactive editor Brett Spencer has written about their latest gizmo, the Radio 5 live election story:

The aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the election campaign, offering all our major interviews arranged by topic everyday. So if you want to hear all parties' views on education or the views of listeners, it's all there under the Education banner. The front of the election story shows you which subjects are the most talked about on air each day and you can navigate through the timeline to see how this is changing day-to-day.

Under the headline BBC News iPad app launches in US Pocket-lint points out that while UK users have to wait to find out about the future of the BBC's proposed iPhone apps that

hasn't stopped the corporation's worldwide commercial arm launching a dedicated BBC iPad app in the US following the launch of the internet tablet at the weekend.

The Backstage blog has drawn our attention to two interesting prototypes: James Holden's BBC Archiver and a mashup of BBC news stories and data.gov.uk datasets created by Rewired State which

publishes links to relevant data.gov.uk datasets next to news articles on the BBC website. Provides important context for those articles and increased visibility for the datasets.

Paul Murphy is the Editor of the Internet blog.

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The recent relaunch of the BBC Doctor Who website is an interesting one for many reasons. Having worked on the Doctor Who site for a number of years now, our team in Wales were very aware that the entire franchise was going through something of a regeneration. The new Doctor, companion and creative team on the show meant that changes to the tone of the brand were coming and we were all keen to ensure that we reflected these in the site.

The brief was a simple, if daunting one, 'make the site the no.1 destination to experience the world of Doctor Who, past, present and future'. In web design terms, this is something of a dream ticket. Having a chance to extend the reality of a show with such rich subject matter as Doctor Who is an amazing opportunity and we were keen to ensure that we could take the impossible world of Doctor Who and make it feel possible in an online context.

We were also eager to ensure that the website could be built in such a manner that it became a platform to distribute originated content associated with Doctor Who - creating an appointment to view - not just a means to reflect and promote the linear TV experience. This in turn meant that the goal was to ensure Doctor Who becomes more than the Saturday night TV programme and becomes a 24/7 experience of which the online element is a key component.

This is where working for a large media organisation came in handy, as several work streams were instigated to allow this to happen.

From a technology point of view we were able to utilise the new BBC Platform. The use of the new Platform has opened up a new suite of development tools to us. You should see this reflected positively in the speed of the site and it will allow us, over time, to produce more dynamic and customisable content. We have also worked with colleagues within the /programmes team to ensure that we keep a single, unique reference to each episode, but supplement this with additional, originated content.

The new Global Visual Language afforded us the ability to (literally) think big with our designs. Bronwyn explains this better than I ever could but we have looked to consistently use these new design principles across the Doctor Who site. Additionally, we will be using the metaphors of time and depth more and more within the site and this is something that you will be seeing over the coming months

We also started to work with R&D; to realise what may become a powerful way of engaging with narratives online. This is a very interesting area, as it helps us explore how to tell stories that don't fit in to single Doctor Who episodes.

Obviously, none of the above will make any difference if we don't have amazing content. Over the past few years, we've accrued much feedback from our audiences from our 'red site' - this has been key in our redesign:

Monsters We know our audiences love monsters - so we've introduced a brand new section in the site for viewers to explore and learn more about them. Iconic foes like Daleks and Cybermen have had repeated encounters with the Doctor and we wanted to reflect this importance within the sites designs. Most obviously, this has come across via the high impact designs seen within this section.

News & Features: We are seeking to position the Doctor Who site as the destination for Doctor Who fans and the news section is important to us for two reasons here. Firstly, the greater level of production news (which is a key request from our users) and also the ability to break important Doctor Who news stories on the site. We are also working to ensure we have better links with the main BBC news site.

Fun & Games: This section of the site is a major priority; it's also extremely popular with our younger audience. We've introduced a brand new look and feel to this section to keep it visually engaging and entertaining. We are also working on the development of our very exciting Adventure Games that you will be hearing a lot more about via the site in the near future.

Past Series: There's a significant piece of work underway to unlock the archive and migrate content from the old into our new site. It's a major undertaking, however as there is so much rich content currently available (albeit in old templates) - we didn't want to hide it away, and will be highlighting classic content.

So the very first phase of the new site is available online now. We will be adding a lot more to it over the next year and trying to ensure we meet our goal of being the 'no.1 destination to experience the world of Doctor Who'. We hope you like it.

Andy Dudfield is Delivery Manager, FM&T; Wales.

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You may have heard by now that the election is officially under way which means some small additions to the house rules by which we moderate the blogs, boards and other BBC social media services. The pan-BBC election coverage guidelines are available here and as for every election, special house rules are now in force until 6th May.

The key points are that if you are standing as a candidate, you should declare this if you wish to comment on the BBC website. Also, we don't allow sloganeering or campaigning in your comments, or attempts to run polls. And of course the usual rules about defamation and offence apply, so be careful when you comment about your MP fiddling his expenses that your post is truthful and not too rude...

Social media looks likely to be a significant battleground in this election and we know that it's not always going to be an easy task to differentiate between abuse of the boards and genuine weight of public opinion, but it's important that the BBC doesn't let discussions be hi-jacked by any particular party or group. If we suspect organised campaigns are distorting the views represented we may take action to remove comments or premoderate or restrict accounts but be assured we absolutely won't be using moderation to influence the balance of views on a site, and will only step in to deal with foul play. For example, sock-puppeting breaks the terms of the website regarding the misuse of multiple accounts and could mean their permanent closure.

Above all, we have a legal obligation to treat the elections fairly and we want to ensure that you can debate the issues in an open and lively way. We look forward to reading thousands of comments that are informative, constructive, and relevant to the debate.

You can help make our task easier. Much of the election discussion will take place on the political blogs and Have Your Say and we ask that you take time to find the most relevant areas for your comments. We may remove your contributions if they don't relate to the topic of the blog or board. This doesn't mean we don't want you to post them, it's just that we'd like you to do it where there are other people who want to discuss them and the appropriate BBC staff reading them. If we've devoted resources to running a discussion on the leaders' debates for example, it seems reasonable to ask that you don't start your own on the gardening messageboard.

Polling day itself is treated rather differently by all media outlets and I'll post again nearer the time to make clear how we'll be moderating on May 6th.

If you wish to email the moderation team about the election rules, or have other general moderation queries, you can contact us via this form.

Paul Wakely is Editor, Moderation Services, BBC Online.

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As the 2010 general election campaign officially gets under way, I thought it might be useful to give you a quick summary of how we'll be covering it on the BBC News website, and the key features you can expect; the BBC's coverage plans as a whole are outlined at the press office.

On the website, our aim is to bring you all the best of the BBC's election output so you can follow what promises to be a hard-fought, engaging and fast-moving campaign online and on your mobile.

Read the rest of BBC News online coverage of Election 2010 and leave your comments on The Editors blog.

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(Editor's note: Recently Steve Herrmann wrote a post on the Editors blog about external linking from the BBC News website . Today he's responded with some answers to your questions:)

... Hosting source documents: On whether we should host or mirror certain source documents (government reports, budget documents, for example) or
simply link: we are keen to simply link when possible, and we are talking to Directgov, for example, about making sure this works well. But if, on any occasion, the best way to ensure quick and simple access for you looks like hosting them ourselves, that's what we'll continue to do.

Languages: Some of you ask about linking to non-English sites. We
are going to add more numerous and prominent links to our own BBC websites in different languages at index level soon. At story level, it depends on the journalist being able to read, check and understand the content he or she is linking to.

Subscription sites: There seem to be mixed views among those of you who have replied to this question, but a number of you say that if we link to content which must be paid for, we should label it as such. We are still working on this. Currently the Newstracker module indicates if the link is going to a site that may require registration...

Read more and comment at the BBC News Editors blog

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