Links for 2006-04-27
- "Broadband is Killing TV" sign at BBC Television Centre I'm assuming it's for some internal point-making exercise, unless the sign-makers guild has finally decided to take up the power that is it's natural birth-right and start making dumb comments all over the place...
- Roman historian Tacitus was a bit down on that Christ fellow He referred to Christianity as a "pernicious superstition" and that Christians committed "crimes against mankind". My brother informs me that Romans also thought Christians were cannibals because of the sacrament. Smart people the Romans, if a bit dull.
- Baby, You Mean The World Of Warcraft To Me "I have sung your praises from the mouth of the Shadowthread Cave to the Stranglethorn Vale of the Eastern Kingdoms." Not convinced by the accuracy, but loving the sentiment...
- The Guardian reports on the BBC's alleged 'radical revamp of website' In my experience the best things the BBC produces don't tend to be the things that get announced in this way. Vaguely appalled by the rebranding of MyBBCPlayer to BBC iPlayer. Might as well just call it BBC Playr and get it over with.
- The BBC is also considering putting adverts on the international version of its news site Don't know what I think about this - perfectly reasonable move organisationally - after all people outside the UK don't pay the license fee, but somehow it's a bit creepy.
- Typography for Headlines Bit old this, but still good - a collection of many examples of typographic treatments of headlines on the web. Particularly good for ideas and for iterating around to find something new.
- One final BBC link for the day - Tom Loosemore talks about the launch of the Programme Catalogue Most important bit - there are feeds for most pages and he explicitly states that there's a free license to use the information for non-commercial purposes. Ladies and Gentlemen we have our API!
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
I like it how the BBC are asking for suggestions as to the new look of their website by holding this Reboot Competition! - I suppose that’s one way of saving millions in design costs! - what’s the betting we are just going to end up with yet another Ajax enabled customisable portal!
→ Posted by: stuart at April 27, 2006 8:54 AM
"BBC iPlayer"? Why not "BBCi Player"? Wouldn't that kind of make more sense? Bless em.
→ Posted by: Trevor at April 27, 2006 10:10 AM
On BBC product naming, it strikes me they really need to try building things without branding them BBC or even announcing the connection/ownership of the beeb. Imagine, to everyone's surprise, if 6 months into use it was announced "BrandX TV Download Site" was actually run by the BBC...?
Their brand does them no favours with the youth market they claim to be chasing with the ridiculous "public service Myspace.com" they plan to build.
→ Posted by: paulpod at April 27, 2006 11:06 AM
On BBC product naming, it strikes me they really need to try building things without branding them BBC or even announcing the connection/ownership of the beeb. Imagine, to everyone's surprise, if 6 months into use it was announced "BrandX TV Download Site" was actually run by the BBC...?
Their brand does them no favours with the youth market they claim to be chasing with the ridiculous "public service Myspace.com" they plan to build.
→ Posted by: paulpod at April 27, 2006 11:08 AM
Nowhere in Creative Futures did anyone say the BBC were going to build a "public service version of My Space". That was spin put out by the Guradian. But the BBC is going to try and personalise its content - just like everybody else is going to.
→ Posted by: Nick Reynolds at April 29, 2006 8:19 PM
Let's be fair here. I'm aware that they didn't say that. And actually you'll see no comments about those statements on my site. But Ashley Highfield did say, "The 'Share' philosophy is at the heart of bbc.co.uk 2.0. We are looking to a world where you could share BBC programmes, your own thoughts, your own blogs and your own home videos. It allows you to create your own space and to build bbc.co.uk around you." Blogs, sharing, self-expression, home videos - if that's not MySpace + Blogs + You Tube, then I don't know what it is and it's pretty disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at April 30, 2006 10:47 AM