5 Most Interesting Stories from the Fortnight
Post categories: round up
| 19:54 UK time, Friday, 23 September 2011
Schedule Wall for Barcamp MediaCityUK. Photo by Ian Forrester
1. Betas galore!
A beta of the new BBC home page was launched this week. This post by James Thornett is still open for your comments.
Josh Halliday produced a storify of initial reaction alongside his piece in Media Guardian. The Register's headline: "BBC Website ditches modules in facelift".
After the initial flurry in the twittersphere more considered opinions emerged including Gareth Klose's "On the Beta BBC home page":
The new one feels both busier, and simpler. Without the excessive and technically unreliable customisation it’s lost that horrible of air of “is it a homepage or a BBC specific My-Yahoo?"
Don't forget the other blog posts currently open for comment about BBC betas:
- An insight into the Radio 1 and 1Xtra Homepages UxD by Yasser Rashid.
- More detail on Radio 1 and 1Xtra Homepages from Chris Johnson.
- A Labs version of the BBC Radio Homepage by Chris Kimber.
2. BBC iPlayer and Accessibility Tools
In this week's edition of Radio 4's In Touch Daniel Danker (General Manager, Programmes and On Demand) was interviewed about BBC iPlayer and accessibilty tools This followed up the previous week's programme which featured feedback from blind users of BBC iPlayer.
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3. BBC Journalism Portal
You may have missed this paper which gives details about how the new BBC Journalism portal works.
Maritta Eager, BBC World Service Head of Development, summed up how the portal helped journalists across the BBC to cover the June 16 Abuja bombings:
Before the Portal this would have involved multiple phone calls and emails. Here everyone could see that conversion instantly. Commissioning was done for everyone in one place without any phones or emails. The Abuja office weren't getting 20 calls. The bureau simply accessed the Portal online. Others outside the Africa community could go into the conversation in real time or after the fact.
Also see Kevin Bakhurst's talk: "How has social media changed the ways newsrooms work?"
4. IBC conference
Kevin was speaking at the IBC conference in Amsterdam where the BBC News app for Samsung TV won the "TV app of the Year" award.
Also attending was Daniel Danker who was interviewed by Videonet: "Tablets are bringing viewers back to the schedule at the BBC".
5. BBC Research and Development blog
There's been some interesting stuff on the R&D blog recently including:
Ian Forrester looks back to a "Wonderful Weekend at BarCamp Media City". There's a video too.
See also this story from the Guardian and "BarCamp? What's a BarCamp" from About The BBC blog.
Plus "Create Your Own BBCQR Code" by Duncan Robertson and "RadioTAG" by Sean O'Halpin
Have a nice weekend.
Nick Reynolds is Accountability Executive, BBC Online
Comment number 1.
At 15:51 26th Sep 2011, londonhunter wrote:Re item 1 - "After the initial flurry in the twittersphere more considered opinions emerged". You seem to be implying that many responses to the Homepage beta were therefore not worth reading. Is this a justification for ignoring opinions with which you do not agree, or which do not coincide with decisions which have already been taken?
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Comment number 2.
At 18:17 26th Sep 2011, Nick Reynolds wrote:londonhunter - I'm not implying anything of the kind. Reaction on twitter whether positive or negative tends to be instant and short (on the day, and limited to 140 characters). More considered and in depth opinion (again whether for or against)may be more interesting to the reader - but ultimately its up to the reader to form their own judgement.
Thanks
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Comment number 3.
At 20:12 29th Sep 2011, RobertIain wrote:Nick Reynolds wrote: "I'm not implying anything of the kind."
You may perhaps not have intended to, but exactly as londonhunter did, that is the distinct impression I got from your comments, and the selective quote of a favourable response on the blog reinforces that.
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Comment number 4.
At 11:29 3rd Oct 2011, OfficerDibble wrote:Nick, How do I find Ian McDonald's blogs?
search doesn't work
there is no subscribe function
his name is no longer in the list of contributors
there is no longer a personal list of subscribed blogs
the link to blogs is now missing from message board subscriptions
the whole blog structure is a mess
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Comment number 5.
At 13:20 3rd Oct 2011, OfficerDibble wrote:No problem Nick, I found Ian by accident here:
https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2011/09/bbc_homepage_beta_responding_t.html?postid=110441175
which co-incidentally shows a few of the more considered opinions on the Beta Home Page.... they seem to be consistent in tone to the initial flurry on Twittersphere.
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Comment number 6.
At 14:35 3rd Oct 2011, Ian McDonald wrote:@OfficerDibble
I have not posted since returning from holiday two weeks ago. As this blog has many authors, my name dropped off the end of the list of contributors. You can find a list of my blog posts by clicking on my name at the top of any of my posts.
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Comment number 7.
At 14:49 3rd Oct 2011, OfficerDibble wrote:Hi Ian.. yes... of course if I can find your name then I can click on it... but as I said, if I can't find your posts.... and your name is still not on the list of contributors.... seems all a bit flaky.
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Comment number 8.
At 15:31 3rd Oct 2011, GrassRootsF1Fan wrote:Hi Nick and all. Just one comment on this blog from me! I am reg blind with little sight.It is good to see you have sought feedback from blind users of i-player and that the BBC wants to follow up any problems or issues with accessability.i have never been brave enough to use i-player given i am also not technically minded but might give it a go.Do you know if i-player is compatiable with accessability technology?im guessing it probably is/should be??Thanks.
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Comment number 9.
At 17:13 3rd Oct 2011, Ian McDonald wrote:@GrassRootsF1Fan
You might find the BBC iPlayer Accessibility help pages, particularly How can I use my Screen Reader with BBC iPlayer? of interest.
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Comment number 10.
At 19:25 3rd Oct 2011, GrassRootsF1Fan wrote:Thanks Ian.i hadnt spotted those.Will have a look now.Am impressed.Many people forget about us or things arent compatiable...kath.
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Comment number 11.
At 13:30 6th Oct 2011, TreeHouseGirl wrote:As fascinating as all these comments are, they're mostly off topic aren't they? Or are the rules different on here?
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Comment number 12.
At 17:30 6th Oct 2011, Ian McDonald wrote:@TreeHouseGirl
LondonHunter disagreed with Nick's summary of the beta homepage reactions, which was on topic. GrassRootsF1Fan had a question about iPlayer accessibility - the second "interesting story".
OfficeDibbler's question about my blog posts was only marginally related, but I erred on the side of treating it as topical.
Why? I wouldn't say that the rules are different, but the further conversation drifts away from a friendly informative chat about the topic of the post, the more strictly I enforce the house rules. When the post isn't attracting as many comments, I think it's easier for readers to tolerate tangents.
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Comment number 13.
At 23:19 6th Oct 2011, TreeHouseGirl wrote:So that's three on and seven off then. Maybe I'm missing something here but has it not occurred to anyone that the subjects up for discussion are so uninteresting that no one wants to comment? It seems to me that the only choice on here is to have an informal off topic chat, which may be why you have seven off topic posts.
Still, what do I know. I'm just a humble licence payer.
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Comment number 14.
At 15:26 9th Oct 2011, OfficerDibble wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 15.
At 19:30 9th Oct 2011, OfficerDibble wrote:TreehouseGirl - I agree.
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