Fans can unite, now there is Fanhu.bz for everyone
Post categories: Prototype, Search, Semantic, data, dataset, fans, hashtags, ideas, jonudell, ldodds, rdf, semanticweb, sparql, tails, twitter
| 17:26 UK time, Thursday, 12 November 2009
Very interesting this project by Leigh Dodds and the Tails team, if a little hard to describe...
The central concept is a "Fan Hub". Each Hub is associated with a BBC ID and provides a tailored browser for shows (coming soon: artists) and related resources like series and episodes. In addition to the data directly provided by the BBC, FanHubz uses a set of semantic bots to monitor Twitter. These bots will find, analyse, aggregate, and interlink tweets with Hubs. The result is a blend of static and dynamic information which lets you track buzz around your favourite shows and artists and simplifies getting in touch with other BBC followers.
So its not only a place to find out when shows you like are coming up but also a place to discovery more like what you may like via the power of the rich data within the system. Some of you may think to yourselves doesn't the first part solve a idea I saw on idea store a while ago? Heck it might even solve Will J's ideas too. It also strikes me that using the data from Fanhubz combined with regular twittering or systems like Boxee which tweet on your behalf what your watching, you could even solve this idea by Nick Shanks.
Like Channelography there's also access directly into the data, this time via RDF using the SPARQL interface which has kicking around for a while now.
The guys have also by stealth created a solution to Jon Udell's thoughts about using BBC IDs as hashtags and translating them into human readable hashtags. For example here is https://fanhu.bz/b006m8ln Torchwood with both types on the same page. But the same page comes up if you do https://fanhu.bz/torchwood too.
Excellent stuff, can't wait for the rest of the promised stuff.
We plan to provide extended community features that will let you enhance and reuse the aggregated information. For now, you can join and leave a Hub through a Twitter interface, and rate BBC shows. FanHubz also provides a rich API for accessing the collected tweet and fan data. We are currently working on a signup mechanism so that you can add ratings and reviews directly via the fanhu.bz site.
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