Archives for November 2011

 

Two months ago the beta version of a new UK homepage for BBC Online was launched, for public use and feedback. My colleague Phil Fearnley published a post at the time to explain the strategic importance of the new homepage and I wrote about the key features in more detail.

Today the homepage that's been running in beta launches in full, and will be the homepage of BBC Online in the UK from now on. For those of you who haven't yet seen it, you can take a look now.

Since the beta launch ten weeks ago we've had three hundred comments on the blogs, over twenty thousand responses to our online survey, and over two and a half thousand direct emails. We have reviewed all your comments, and I'd like to thank those of you who took the time to test the beta and provide feedback. On my previous blog post you can read my responses to some of your comments.

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Hello, I’m Melanie Seyer and I’m the lead designer of the BBC Weather product within BBC Future Media. In the middle of November we launched a refresh of the Weather site and I would like to tell you a bit about the design process of this project.

From Beta to Live

BBC Weather is a key online product offered across News, iPlayer, Radio and News. The online landscape is changing very rapidly and many platforms (smart phones, tablets and iPTV) offer new design and development opportunities.

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What I like most about these briefings is the opportunity to engage with our partners and suppliers - with whom we share an overarching objective to create great experiences for our audiences.

To close the BBC Online Industry Briefing, Mark Harrison from BBC North, Roly Keating, Executive Editor of BBC Online and I sat down together and answered some really good questions.

These included how online businesses can still pitch new ideas now that online commissioning will be more aligned with linear. And what our worst nightmare was.

Here's the video:

Ralph Rivera is the Director of BBC Future Media

After the product updates on Sport and Children the presenters, including myself, took to the stage to answer questions. Questions from the partners and suppliers covered a wide range of topics, including questions about scalability of our services, especially for the Olympics and Flash versus HTML5 and Applications for online games.

The panel was Phil Buckley (Product Lead, Children's), Japhet Asher (Executive Producer, CBBC), Ben Gallop (Head, BBC Sport Interactive and Formula 1) and myself.

Cait O'Riordan is the Head of Product, BBC Sport and London 2012

1Xtra Live - 4 nights, 4 cities, 4 massive line-ups

1Xtra Live is back and bigger than ever! This year's show is heading to venues in Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and London.

The annual extravaganza, now in its fourth year, celebrates the best in contemporary Hip Hop, RnB, Garage, Drum & Bass and Dancehall.

1Xtra Live got off to an incredible start in 2008 with a fantastic event in Coventry featuring Jay Sean, Akon and Kelly Rowland.

The 2011 line-up includes Dappy, Chase & Status, Tinchy Stryder, Jessie J and Nero. Plus, Kelly Rowland returns for the London show!

For the full line-up visit the 1Xtra website.

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At our BBC Online & Red Button events in Salford I did a presentation with Ben Gallop, who is Head of Interactive and Formula 1.

We shared our strategy for BBC Sport online and showed a preview of the work we are doing to support the BBC's coverage of the London 2012 Olympics.

We showed a 'concept car' consisting of two user journeys which I hope bring to life some of the things we're exploring as we shape our digital offer for London 2012.

Here is a film of our presentation.

Cait O'Riordan is the Head of Product for BBC Sport and London 2012.

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It gave me a lot of pleasure last Thursday to sit down with partners from across the industry and talk about how we can give the audience an experience that is both delightful and dead simple.

Here is the video of my panel with Sidharth Jayant (Samsung), Edd Uzzell (Sony UK), and Mark Vasey (Panasonic UK).

Daniel Danker is the General Manager, Programmes and On-Demand, BBC Future Media

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Hello, I'm Phil Buckley, the Product Manager for CBBC and CBeebies interactive.

My editorial colleagues Japhet Asher, Rachel Bardill, and I gave a talk on Thursday 17 November to a group of suppliers, both to introduce those new to children's content to what we do, and also to meet talented new agencies who might be interested in our upcoming work.

As always, the BBC is not responsible for any risque/ off message jokes:

Phil Buckley is Product Manager, CBBC and CBeebies

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It was exciting to welcome our partners in Salford and introduce many of them to each other last Thursday.

It is inspiring to hear how their consumer propositions are making a real difference to how people will consume digital BBC products in the future.

My team in BBC Future Media Business Development is the eyes and ears in the markets, helping us to make those connections between BBC products and new devices and services.

If you wish to follow up with BBC Future Media team, please don’t hesitate to contact Future Media Business development via email or comment below. Here is my presentation:

Jane Weedon is the Controller, Future Media Business Development

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At each of our BBC Online & Red Button events, we share insights into audience behaviours with the industry.

At the last event in June we highlighted three themes: enduring experiences, dispersed attention and easy participation.  In Salford last week, the focus was on audience relationships with the four screens.

Here is a film of my presentation, "Beyond the Screens":

Holly Goodier is the Head of Audiences, BBC Future Media

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Autumnwatch

The Autumnwatch webcams are back! We have live action from the Bewick's swan lake at the Slimbridge Reserve.

The Autumnwatch team have chosen the swans because they meet their three criteria: concentration (can remote pan-and-tilt cameras capture the action?), spectacle (does the subject matter look great?) and character (can you follow individuals' stories?).

Family groups jostle for position in the pecking order ©James Lees / WWT

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It was fantastic yesterday to welcome people to Salford, now that it's all set up - not just the BBC but a whole ecosystem of technical and media companies. Here is a video of my keynote:

Ralph Rivera is the Director, BBC Future Media

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Speakers listen to Victoria Derbyshire after Ralph Rivera sits down after his keynote. From right to left: Holly Goodier, Rachel Bardill, Phil Buckley, Cait O'Riordan and Ralph Rivera.

The delegates are all back at base, hopefully digesting the content of yesterday's BBC Online Industry Briefing. Before I put all the talks and videos online, here's a brief flavour of how the day went.

Trendsmap said that #BBCOnline was the second highest trending topic in Manchester at points in the afternoon. (They meant Greater Manchester. Ralph told us that taxi drivers had warned him not to confuse straightforward Manchester with Salford.)

Delegates were very interested in the R&D tour, particularly the talking Dalek. Emma Cooper of Team Cooper Limited tweeted:

Really interesting day at media city, loved tour of r&d, going to go read more about universal remote API & think re my screens #bbconline

Ralph Rivera announced a new £1m innovations fund, with regular hackdays and short-run 10-12 week projects. As delegates were briefed on audiences and business developement, Glyn Povah of Telefonica was distracted by the view:

Getting Vertigo here on top floor of Media City #BBCOnline

There were some good questions too. Steve Reynolds (@jedifireblade) tweeted:

Good discussion around content on multiple devices, and online content, no talk so far on the bandwidth challenges we face #bbconline

Mike Dicks of indie trade group PACT looked at his packed diary:

#Salford and #Manchester are a media hotbed today, #mf11, #BBConline, #pactuk seminar and a little gig with @garybarlow

Glyn Povah continued to tweet through the day:

All this tweeting at #BBCOnline is rapidly depleeting my #iPhone battery. If it goes silent you know why

I'll post the videos from the event, with the comments around each talk, starting with Ralph Rivera's keynote today.

Ian McDonald is the Content Producer, BBC Internet blog

It's five months since our last industry briefing at BAFTA, London. Later today we're holding the second event in the series, this time at BBC North's headquarters at MediaCityUK in Salford. The event will follow a similar pattern to the first. We want to share with a broad cross section of the digital media industry our latest product plans and thinking about significant topics.

The BBC speaker list includes a healthy sprinkling of our leadership in the North. As you may be aware, we are in the process of moving six out of ten products to be based in Salford: homepage, search, CBBC, Cbeebies, Sport, and Knowledge & Learning. This Northern bias extends to our guest list which has a number of features of suppliers based in the North.

The schedule for the event looks like this:

Ralph Rivera, Director, Future Media will update partners on our performance over the last five months.

Holly Goodier will share insights about audience relationships with Computers, TV, mobile and other devices.

Jane Weedon, Controller, Business Development will talk about how we work with a range of device manufacturers to bring BBC programmes and content to our audience

The leadership of products newly based in Salford, Children's and Sport, will talk about the emerging product and answer questions

Daniel Danker will welcome partners into an industry panel discussion about simplicity and "Delivering Products that Delight the Whole Audience"

Finally Ralph Rivera, Roly Keating (Director, Archive and Executive Editor, BBC Online), and Mark Harrison (Head of Production, BBC North) will take questions

As in June, demand for places has far exceeded the number of people we can squeeze in to the room. So videos and write-ups of the talks will appear here on the BBC Internet Blog, this week and next.

And as in June please tweet with the hashtag #BBCOnline.

If you are joining us at MCUK, I look forward to seeing you here. If not I look forward to reading your comments.

Andy Conroy is General Manager, BBC Online and BBC Red Button

Children in Need Rocks Manchester!

Gary Barlow is bringing together the biggest and brightest stars of the music industry for BBC Children in Need Rocks Manchester, a one-off concert to help change young lives right here in the UK.

Performing will be an international stellar line-up including Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, JLS, Elbow, Dappy, Hugh Laurie, Snow Patrol, Michael Bublé and the fabulous Lady Gaga!

Our hosts for the night, Fearne Cotton, Chris Moyles and David Tennant, will introduce a roster of special celebrity guests and never-before seen surprise collaborations.

Red button viewers will get an extra treat with an exclusive performance by Lady Gaga from the concert and the BBC Children in Need charity single, Massive Attack's Teardrop performed by The Collective.

For the latest news and to find out how to donate visit BBC Children in Need.

Available on all platforms

Thu 17th November, 9:55pm-4:00am

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The new BBC Weather site shows prevailing weather clear skies behind a ferris wheel. The site will eventually reflect the weather being viewed on the page.

I’m Peter Deslandes, Head of the BBC Weather product within BBC Future Media. Just over a week ago we launched the new BBC Weather website in beta mode, a work-in-progress version which will eventually replace the current site – my editorial counterpart Liz Howell introduced this over on the BBC News Editors blog. Today I wanted to expand on how we approached the beta, tell you a bit about how audiences have responded, and provide a view of future plans too.

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Autumnwatch

Autumnwatch Live are tracking the very best wildlife action from the beginning to the end of this dramatic season, finding unique insights into some of our best loved animals.

On Red Button, we have a seasonal selection of photos. The images are chosen by the web team from pictures viewers have uploaded to the Autumnwatch Flickr group.

Here's what the team are calling their 'Lush Montage' of favourite photos so far:

Get involved on the Autumnwatch website

Available on all platforms

Virgin Media:
Sat 5th November, 6:00am-6:30am, 10:30am-11:20am, 8:30pm-6:00am
Sun 6th November, 6:00am-6:00am
Mon 7th November, 6:00am-6:30am, 10:30am-2:30pm, 6:30pm-10:30pm
Tue 8th November, 12:05am-6:30am, 10:30am-2:30pm, 6:30pm-6:00am
Wed 9th November, 6:00am-6:30am, 10:30am-2:30pm
Thu 10th November, 10:30am-2:30pm, 6:30pm-6:00am
Fri 11th November, 6:00am-6:00am
Sat 12th November, 6:00am-6:25pm, 8:50pm-6:00am
Sun 13th November, 6:00am-11:40am, 3:45pm-6:00am

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The new radio home page shows what's on now across the networks

Two months ago in September we released a Labs version of the BBC Radio homepage, which I blogged about here. Since then we have made a number of improvements based on our backlog and the very useful feedback from visitors, and today the new page has replaced the existing Radio homepage at bbc.co.uk/radio.  This is the first step on the ladder towards a new radio and music product which will launch in 2012.

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