5 Interesting Stories from November
Post categories: BBC Online
| 16:25 UK time, Friday, 2 December 2011
Bert Foord of the Metereological Office presents the weather in 1969
1. Wed 9th Nov: BBC Trust drafts new syndication policy
Under the previous syndication policy decided in 2007, the BBC Trust had directed that if BBC TV shows appear on somebody else's platform - such as the cable TV box in your living room - then the content should still be wrapped up in a BBC presentation. (Unlike say, radio shows, which you can download to your MP3 player as a podcast.)
The draft policy announce on November 9th (a revision to a provisional policy announced in January) still makes this the default:
... these principles will usually be best served by offering would-be partners direct access to the full range of BBC content, via their platform or device, within a BBC environment. This currently means a standard BBC product, such as the iPlayer, delivered over the internet, but the principles set out in this policy apply equally to any future syndication products.
But makes space for exceptions:
23. Circumstances may occasionally arise, however, that justify special arrangements that depart from this model.
Journalists such as Robert Andrews at PaidContent interpreted this as a way through which BBC Programmes could appear within Sky's own on-demand service and third-party streaming websites.
The Guardian's Mark Sweney summed up BSkyB's position:
BSkyB has wanted the freedom to potentially take individual shows, not an all-or-nothing iPlayer service from the BBC, as well as the ability to allow customers to access the corporation's programming through its own services such as Sky Anytime+.
Kate Solomon at TechRadar added:
It may also mean that some BBC content makes its way to third party streaming services like Netflix and LoveFilm.
2. Thu 17th Nov: The Daleks of NorthLab
Andrew with Dalek
BBC North Lab ran open days this month for journalists and delgates to the BBC Online Industry briefing. I was able to join one of the tours myself, and it was great to see the innovations they were using.
Adrian Woolard has already blogged about the Open Days, so I won't go on about their experiements with second screens, broadcast technologies, and other really interesting things. You can also looks inside NorthLab by Nigel Whitfield of The Register and Sarah Hartley of the Guardian's Northener Blog.
Sarah Hartley included a video of the Dalek in the photo. This was a demo of a concept around accessible control devices, and how they could be controlled by events on the TV.
The following week, it went viral. "BBC develop model Dalek that can be controlled by your television" wrote The Telegraph on Thursday 24th. The following morning, The Metro ran "BBC's Doctor Who team to bring Daleks to a sofa near you."
I even got a link forwarded to me by my fiancé, who refuses to listen to me talk about the show and hence had no idea that I'd already met said Dalek.
Adrian Woolard blogged that this was actually a proof of concept of "Universal Control" technologies that could let other devices interact with the TV:
Conversations and collaborative work with disability rights groups, assistive technology manufacturers and television platform operators have convinced us that this approach to accessibility would deliver significant benefits to users with these requirements in a way that doesn't impose unaffordable costs on set-top box and television manufacturers.
This proof of concept is by Andrew Bonney, a University Manchester graduate on an industrial trainee placement, tasked with finding out if "Universal Control" clients can work on simple embedded devices like a set-top box, and exploring the dual-screen experience:
Andrew's deft modification of an off-the-shelf Dalek toy achieved everything we wanted from the project. We gained valuable insights into the challenges of developing Universal Control clients for an embedded platform with just 32kB of RAM, while demonstrating their feasibility in a very striking way. It's also an entirely new take on the concept of "dual screen", demonstrating that the things you can synchronise to a TV programme go way beyond smartphone and tablet applications.
If you're thirsting to find out more about BBC Research and Development, you might also find Jamillah Knowle's interview with BBC R & D boss Matthew Postgate, on BBC 5 Live's Outriders, of interest.
3. New BBC Weather website
This month saw the new BBC Weather website go from beta to live.
Peter Deslandes blogged about the changes in the new site. Melanie Seyer wrote an excellent post about the new design which has been shared over 400 times.
Former BBC Designer Mike Afford blogged about the return of the weather symbols:
For some reason it feels like the symbols have been gone for ages, but they’ve really only had about 3 years in the wilderness (they’d lingered on the BBC website for a few years after the 2005 relaunch, and only got replaced on the 2008 beta site).
Mike also blogged about the sea changing colour.
4. New BBC Homepage
The beta BBC homepage went live two days ago. Its window into BBC content is a very different approach the previous set of customised widgets. Chatterbox Analytics used their software to analyse the Twitter response, breaking down the results into groups:
We see some groups that completely agree that the redesign is poor, with varying levels of negativity ... Whilst we also see groups that have a more mixed opinions, beginning very negative moving through to positivity at the end ...
Former bus driver Malcolm Loades speaks for many who commented. Malcolm calls it "kebab shop style" and "dumbed down".
Speaking at the November 17th BBC Online Industry Briefing, while the homepage was still in beta, BBC Future Media Director Ralph Rivera said he expected any big change in the homepage to be badly received initially:
We measure the AI's [Audience Appreciation Index] when something launches, and usually our AI's go down ... like 8% ...
Rare cases when we do something extremely well it's flat or a little bit up. Last year I think food was like that - an exception. I'm betting that we'll see that as well with the radio stuff.
I'm absolutely sure we're not going to see that about the homepage. ...
We're going to be very couragous as far as the homepage is concerned because in terms of the notion of having one service we want to reposition our homepage as the gateway to that one service.
Right now, that's not what it does. It is primarily a proxy for News and Sport.
Martin Belam blogged about the reaction, putting in the context of the negative reaction to the old homepage when that launched in 2008. He unearthed the groundwork for the 2002 redesign, and looked at the changes over time:
I think the new design everyone is complaining about this week does say something about the shift in the BBC’s online priorities, as a result of successive reviews defining an ever tighter remit for bbc.co.uk.
5. Thirty years of the BBC Micro
This month completed 30 years of the BBC Microcomputer, which launched on December 1st 1981.
BBC News interviewed a number of technology professionals who owed their start to the Microcomputer, and Tony Smith of The Register told the story of the BBC Micro.
Former BBC Backstage producer Rain Ashford tweeted that the article didn't mention any women:
Rolling my eyes (of course) at BBC News for not finding any women BBC Micro users for this anniversary article
Dr Sue Black, of Bletchley Park fame, swiftly set up a Posterous for fellow geek women like Melanie Rhianna Lewis to blog their experience of the BBC Micro.
Like Rain, I was more of a Sinclair person - selling my first computer game on a ZX81. I'll just have to wait for Micro Men to be repeated so I can root for Sir Clive again.
Ian McDonald is the Content Producer, BBC Internet Blog
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