Mark Kermode BBC video blog

Every so often you get to be involved with a project which is not only professionally satisfying, it also resonates with your own personal obsessions. Kermode Uncut - the newly launched BBC video blog - has been one such project, marrying my passion for blogging with my fan-boy enthusiasm for the film criticism of Mark Kermode. Long-standing readers of this blog will know that I listen religiously to his weekly Radio 5 Live film review podcast with Simon Mayo (see My media consumption diet) and that his wife was my one of my tutors at University (see 8 random facts about me). Suffice to say, I didn't have to think for long before taking Nick Cohen (Multiplatform Executive for BBC Knowledge) up on his offer to help shepherd the project through its initial development phase.

So, why a video blog (or, if we must, vlog)? Well, anyone's who seen or heard Mark's review of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End will understand how much of his reviewing is in the delivery and what a missed opportunity simply sitting him down at a keyboard would have been (excellent though his writing for Sight & Sound and The Observer is). It also felt like an opportunity to innovate with the BBC's blogging platform. With the possible exception of the Blue Peter blog (which Wikipedia credits as the BBC's first video blog), the BBC's blogs have been predominantly text-led to date, which was also starting to feel like a bit of a missed opportunity for an organisation which knows a thing or two about creating compelling video content.

Video blogging first started genrating buzz back in 2005 (aided and abetted by the launch of YouTube), but is still to go mainstream in the way that text blogging has, despite a few high-profile successes (e.g. Rocketboom, lonelygirl15). My hunch is that this may change in the coming 12 months as mobile video cameras continue to improve and sites like Seesmic, Qik and Kyte get users more comfortable with talking direct to camera (interestingly it was the Beeb that did much to pave the way for video blogging with Video Nation).

Certainly the typically more intimate, authored tone of a video blog is a good fit for Mark as this wonderful post on his past experience of the Cannes Film Festival demonstrates.

Props to: Nicholas Jones, Stevan Keane, Hedda Archbold, Nick Cohen, Claire Cook, Neil Bramah, Al Boley, Aaron Scullion and anyone else I've forgotten (as I invariably do).

Video streaming and ISP traffic shaping

The above chart shows the data transfer usage for my broadband connection over the past month. The noteworthy change from the same usage chart for November? Over 2GB of peak-time streaming. The culprit? BBC iPlayer. Why significant? Because my ISP (PlusNet) uses traffic shaping to discourage/penalise peak-time usage, which I've been doing a whole lot of ever since my colleagues in BBC Future Media & Technology added a streaming component to the iPlayer in December. As a result, my "up to 8Mb" connection has been throttled to a painfully slow 125.87 Kbps (according to thinkbroadband's Speed Test) during peak hours, rendering web browsing tortuous and streamed video unwatchable (which is how it will remain until the end of this month's billing period).

PlusNet has a helpful page explaining traffic prioritisation (presumably so-called because it sounds slightly less sinister than traffic shaping), which contains the obligatory layman's metaphor:

"Think of it this way, the broadband network is like a motorway. When the traffic is light, all vehicles can move at the national speed-limit. Some lanes of the motorway have been reserved for important traffic, such as buses or emergency vehicles. During rush hour, most vehicles are forced to slow down. However, the traffic on the reserved lanes can continue to travel at their full speed."

The interesting word here is 'important' - an inherently subjective term (surely streaming video is important to me if that's what I happen to be doing? I don't want to be stuck in a bandwidth traffic jam if I'm trying to watch BBC THREE live or catch-up on the Six Nations). What ISPs are really interested in, unsurprisingly, is limiting bandwidth-intensive activities such as video streaming and P2P downloading which eat into their profit margins.

Until relatively recently, ISPs had a handy justification for traffic shaping: that the vast majority of video streaming and P2P downloading was illegal. This is becoming less true as more and more legitimate streaming and download offerings emerge (the BBC may have taken most of the heat on the bandwidth implications of iPlayer, but ITV, Channel 4, Five and Sky all offer similar services). Add new entrants Joost, Zattoo, Vuze, Babelgum, Jalipo, Veoh, Brightcove and Democracy (all reviewed here) into the mix and you're looking at a burgeoning market for legal downloads and streams.

So, what's an online telly addict to do? One option would be to change ISPs, although as David Meyer points out in a comment on ZDNet, "Any ISP which says it doesn't use traffic shaping at all is lying, unless it simply doesn't have enough subscribers to fill up its pipes". Part of the problem is that in the race to offer cheaper and cheaper (and in some cases free) broadband, profit margins have been squeezed to the point where a high-bandwidth user is no longer an economically viable customer. Unfortunately, that category of high-bandwidth users looks sets to grow exponentially as streaming and P2P downloading become increasingly mainstream.

One possible scenario, suggested in a typically polemical piece on The Register, is a return to metered pricing. Whilst this may feel slightly counter-intuitive, it is consistent with the idea of broadband as utility. I'm happy to pay for my water, gas and electricity on the basis of how much I use - why not my broadband? Personally, I think this is pretty unlikely. Most people were so delighted to see the back of metered dial-up access that it feels implausible that they'd accept a return to a pay-as-you-go model. A more likely scenario is that slightly more expensive, higher-bandwidth packages will increase in popularity for heavy users who (like me) would happily pay a bit more not to have their streams endlessly buffer.

My short-term solution is to return to off-peak downloading using Azureus, with its handy Speed Scheduler plug-in ensuring that it only downloads between the hours of midnight and 4pm (hence no purple in the Peer-to-peer bar). Not my preferred solution, not least because it requires me to decide in advance what I want to watch rather than sampling on a whim (which I've been doing a lot more of since iPlayer introduced streaming). I'm now back to thinking 'do I want to watch this programme enough to download a 600MB file?' to which the answer's often no.

Longer term I think I could well be shopping around for a package with a more generous bandwidth allocation and/or less severe traffic shaping. Any recommendations welcome.

Disclaimer: I work for the BBC. The opinions expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the views of my employer.

Related fabric of folly posts:
Broadband as utility
Interesting times for the BBC online
Round-up of Internet TV services

BBC THREE reborn

Congratulations to assorted colleagues on the relaunch of BBC THREE, not only on-air (where the blobs have made way for user-created junctions - not to everyone's delight), but also online, where the site has been transformed from a rather static, sombre affair (above left) to something more dynamic and befitting the channel's target demographic (above right).

Five particularly cool things about the new site:

- live simulcast from 7pm every day (UK only)
- full integration with the BBC Programmes BETA (= a permanent page for every episode)
- it uses bbc.co.uk's new visual language (hence the extra width)
- it's got an innovative new Flash schedule, which expands whichever day/programme you click on to give you more information
- it's not an island, with sensible presences on Bebo, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube

Lots of people contributed to the redevelopment of the site but a special shout out to Jo Twist, Al Boley, Siobhan Mulholland, Yuri Kang, Simon Clarke, Oliver Bartlett, Beth Meade, Paul Condon and Venus Speedwell who all worked their socks off to turn it round.

You can read what my boss, Simon Nelson, has to say about the BBC THREE relaunch on the BBC Internet Blog.

Related fabric of folly posts:
Lily Allen take-away widget
Interesting times for the BBC online
Torchwood ARG

QR Codes - not just big in Japan?

Until a couple of weeks ago QR Codes were very much on the periphery of my attention radar. Then some of my colleagues working on the BBC Programmes BETA hit on the ingenious idea of automatically generating a QR Code for every BBC programme (just add /qrcode to the end of any programme page URL to view - more from Tom Scott).

Since then, QR Codes seem to be everywhere I turn. First I caught up with the news that The Sun newspaper has notched up 11,000 registered users for its mobile QR service, launched on the 5th December in The Sun's inimitable style (see below image). Then, today, Silicon Valley Insider revealed that Google is planning to sell newspaper ads with QR codes. Whilst only a fraction of handsets currently have the requisite decoding software installed, Google have a convenient Trojan horse in the form of Android (The Sun is directing readers to download the i-nigma reader).

You can generate your own QR Code of a URL, phone number, SMS or using free text (up to 250 characters) here. The above QR Code is of this blog's URL.


Image: The Sun

Torchwood ARG

Have been enjoying playing around with the BBC's new Torchwood ARG, another example of the BBC treating the web as a creative canvas (disclaimer: I work for BBC Vision Multiplatform, although wasn't directly involved with this commission).

Whilst I'm not sure if it wholly conforms to the received wisdom on what an ARG is, it plays nicely off the broadcast narrative, makes good use of embedded video (clip below) and weaves in a constellation of satellite sites (e.g. New Eden Tech, Venus Clinic and Dark Talk, which also has a MySpace page).

The only downers are the rather clumsy disclaimers (see screencap from Matt Jones) and the rights limitations which mean that you can't view the main content outside of the UK (international visitors are redirected to this page). Google for 'Torchwood ARG' and you'll see that much of the discussion is around the geo-blocking rather than collaborative problem solving, which feels like a shame.

Lily Allen take-away widget

Building on the success of Seven Ages of Rock's embeddable video and adhering to number five of the BBC's Fifteen Web Principles ("Treat the entire web as a creative canvas: don’t restrict your creativity to your own site"), I'm pleased to note the launch of the below take-away widget in support of Lily Allen's forthcoming BBC THREE show. The widget offers a choice of video, a form to register your interest in getting involved and an opportunity to vote on which of two bands get their UK TV debut on the show each week. The widget is also available as a Facebook app (natch).


Full terms and conditions

Also noteworthy is the way in which the programme's production process is being opened up to the public via a deliberately work-in-progress website (described by Lily on her MySpace blog as "a bit crap at the moment, but we'll be updating it more and more everyday, and it's going to be amazing soon"), a Production Blog (written by the team at Princess Productions) and a YouTube group (inviting users to upload stuff that will make Lily laugh).

It's going to be interesting to see how all of this new activity dovetails with Lily's existing online presences such as her official EMI site and her MySpace profile (473,000 friends and 10.7 million profile views at the time of writing...)

Related posts:
Why Seven Ages of Rock rocks
Interesting times for the BBC online
2007: the year of the widget?

Must-watch music/science/life documentary

Photograph: BBC

Finally found the time to sit down and watch Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, which I downloaded via BBC iPlayer a couple of weeks back, and I just can't recommend it enough. The documentary follows Mark Oliver Everett, the creative force behind criminally underrated indie rock band, Eels, on a journey across America to discover more about the father he never really knew - taciturn quantum physicist and author of the Many-Worlds Interpretation, Hugh Everett III. The film works on a multitude of different planes (appropriately enough): as a primer on quantum mechanics; as a thumbnail sketch of post-war America; as a portrait of a distant father-son relationship; and as an insight into the minds of two geniuses, one musical, one scientific.

Unfortunately the programme is no longer available to download although thanks to the BBC Programmes BETA I can link to a permanent episode page which will automatically provide an embedded on-demand stream of the programme for a week after transmission should it be shown again (would be nice to add a broadcast alert feature to these pages come to think of it - will mention it to the brains in Audio & Music Interactive).

Until such a time, you'll have to make do with a couple of tasters from the BBC's YouTube channel:

Bruce Parry blogging from the Amazon

Very excited about Amazon. No, not the online retailer (like they need the Googlejuice), but Bruce Parry's latest adventure and one of the BBC's first blogs to launch in support of a TV series. For the uninitiated, Bruce Parry is a former British Royal Marine instructor who now makes his living presenting anthropological documentaries such as the acclaimed Tribe (known as Going Tribal in the States) and the children's 'Serious...' strand (e.g. Serious Desert, Serious Arctic, Serious Andes).

Building on the success of Long Way Down (which had a pseudo-blog built using one of the BBC's content management systems), the Amazon production team have been blogging using Moveable Type since mid-October, when their epic journey began (in Miami airport). In addition to text entries, the team are also posting photos and embedded video clips (see below), which really enhance the offer. There's also an Interactive Map, overlaying the team's blog entries onto a Google Map so you can chart the narrative geographically.

What's exciting to me is the way in which the team are using the web to extend the life of the broadcast way beyond a single moment of transmission, to cover the whole production process (see Dan Hill's seminal piece on The Social Life of a Broadcast) and the blogging platform in particular, to provide an authored and serialised version of that narrative which users can engage with at any point.

It's not all been plain sailing of course - laptop problems forced the team to dictate some entries to the team back at base in Cardiff via satellite phone and they've had to implement a frustrating, but necessary, 3-5 week delay in actually putting the posts live to protect the security of the crew (watch the below video from coca country to understand why).



Huge props to Andrew Dudfield, Jo Pearce and the rest of the multiplatform team in BBC Wales for getting the blog up and running and looking so slick on the BBC's current installation of Moveable Type (no mean feat!) and David Felce for shoring up the platform (see Robin Hamman on 18 Months of Blogs on the BBC Internet Blog).

Amazon with Bruce Parry will air on BBC TWO in 2008.

Disclaimer: I work for the BBC. The opinions expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the views of my employer.

Chat around TV?

Between May 2003 and March 2005 the BBC piloted an online chat service (called BBC Connector) which enabled visitors to certain parts of the BBC website to instant message other users viewing the same page as them. Referred to internally as 'chat around content', the concept was arguably ahead of its time / the available technology (the same could be said of MyBBC - a forerunner to the personalised startpage, live on bbc.co.uk between 2000 and 2003).

Fast forward a couple of years and the notion of chat around content seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance, although this time it's video rather than webpages (Gabbly, weblin et al. excepted) which is the content in question. Stickam got the ball rolling with the launch of its Media Chat service in August 2006, followed by Lycos Cinema in the November and ClipSync in the December. Also in December, YouTube started offering YouTube Streams via its ideas incubator, TestTube. February this year, Lycos added Lycos Mix and in August, Skype launched a new version which enabled users to download videos from Dailymotion and Metacafe and add them to their 'mood', inviting other users to chat around them. In November, Joost revealed Meebo was to provide its chat widget and then just last week Userplane announced tie-ups with Channel 4, The CW, Fuel TV and IFC (although it's not yet clear whether the company's popular IM and chat tools will be directly deployed around video assets or not).

Of course, not all users haven't been waiting around for media owners to join the dots and many have been hacking together their own chat around content experiences for years. One of my favourite BBC Radio Player anecdotes concerns multiple users communicating via Instant Messaging to coordinate a simultaneous press of the play button on listen again programmes, to ensure a synchronous (and therefore shared) listening experience. If its been done for radio, it's a safe bet that the same has been happening around live and on-demand television as well, at least in pockets.

What hasn't yet been established is to what extent users would make use of chat around television functionality were it to become more widely available. Microsoft demonstrated a TV chat interface as far back as 1999, which singularly failed to take the world by storm (although recently leaked screenshots suggest 'Chat whilst watching TV' may be appearing as an option on suitably IPTV-enabled Xbox 360s in the not too distant future).

One argument is that even in this age of continuous partial attention, online chat is too intrusive an activity for most television viewers (although I'm not sure how much water that holds when you consider that talking over the TV is practically a national pastime). Whether viewers will use chat applications to discuss the on-screen programming or not is perhaps a more pertinent question. I also can't help feeling it won't be long before advertisers are asking for IPTV chat apps to be disabled during ad breaks because viewers are ignoring their ads in favour of chatting to their mates (solution: makes your ads interesting enough that people want to talk about them).

Regardless of the absence of demonstrable user-demand, chat functionality is likely to feature on the roadmap of many IPTV companies, looking to use the potential of a network to gain a competitive advantage over terrestrial broadcasters without an integrated back-channel. Only time will tell whether its a mass-market proposition or not.

Interesting times for the BBC online

Busy (and interesting) times at work at the moment (hence the recent dearth of posts). September saw the launch of BBC Vision's new multiplatform strategy which I'd been working on for the previous six months. October heralded a new role for me, with a typically elliptical title (Portfolio Executive, Internet for BBC Vision). It also marked the beta launch of bbc.co.uk/programmes, delivering a permanent, findable page for every episode of every BBC television and radio programme (more on this from Tom Scott - huge props to Matt Wood, Paul Clifford, Jamie Tetlow, Chris Sizemore, Sophie Walpole, Duncan Robertson, Phil Gyford et al. for getting it live).

This week saw the unveiling of the BBC Internet Blog, edited by Nick Reynolds and positioned as a sister blog to the News and Sport Editors blogs. Ashley Highfield kicked off proceedings and is currently averaging an impressive (but possibly unsustainable) post per day.

Other interesting recent BBC web stuff:

Embedded video on the homepage (see currybetdotnet)

Some rather splendid programme/event minisites:
Later... with Jools Holland
Long Way Down
BBC Electric Proms

And finally, a clutch of Facebook applications (of varying degrees of officialness):
BBC Comedy DNA
BBC Friends on TV
BBC iPlayer
BBC Headlines
BBC Podcasts
BBC Radio

Interesting times...

10 things I'd be blogging about if I wasn't so busy

Work is eating my soul at the moment. Here are ten things I'd be blogging about at greater length if I wasn't so damn busy:

The BBC Radio Player - which is 5 years old today. My first major project at the BBC, the Radio Player now generates 23 million hours of live and on-demand listening to BBC Radio every month. Not too shabby.

i'm in like with you - strangely addictive Web 2.0 style flirting game where you collect points which you can then use to bid for attention. Invite-only beta at the mo (thanks Jo for mine) - mail me if you want one (dan at fabricoffolly.co.uk).

Spock - a search engine for finding people. Also in invite-only beta (I've got a couple left if you want to mail me, as above).

Jindabyrne - outstanding Aussie flick based on the Raymond Carver short story 'So Much Water So Close to Home', starring Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne. Guaranteed a spot in my Top 30 films of 2007 (here's the 2006 list).

Video annotation (a.k.a. deep tagging) - an interesting new growth area in online video (see Mojiti, veotag, Viddler.com), although Click.TV was recently taken offline. The BBC is currently experimenting with audio annotation.

ubroadcast - in our on-demand, podcastable world, live broadcasting is a USP for this DIY streaming service. Not wildly different from Live365 and Shoutcast mind.

Babelgum - finally got access to this Joost-alike. You should now be able to get in without an invite but mail me if you want one.

Spotback - del.icio.us with ratings.

Heatmaps - ClickTale and tapefailure have joined Crazy Egg at the forefront of new ways of recording and visualising visitors' browsing activity on your site.

T-shirts 2.0 - liberate yourself from the tyranny of the Threadless voting community and get your crap design made into a real-life tee which you can then try and flog to your mates at one of the new breed of democratic t-shirt retailers (Bountee, CafePress, DNA STYLELAB, GoodStorm, innerTee, Spreadshirt, Zazzle).

Right, back to work...

Why Seven Ages of Rock rocks

It's rare for me to post on something work-related but I feel compelled to point you in the direction of the awesome Seven Ages of Rock site which launched this week in support of a new landmark music documentary series starting this Saturday on BBC TWO. What's particularly rocking my world about the site is the way in which it augments quality BBC video and editorial with feeds from some of the best-in-class Web 2.0 services. So, in addition to the exclusive mini-docs (with embeddable promo clips - yay!), photos, album reviews and related links for each featured artist, you get a biography from Wikipedia, photos from Flickr and a chart of the most listened to tracks from Last.fm. The content can be navigated by programme, artist, event or via an interactive timeline which maps key milestones from the seven eras. Users are also invited to have their say on any of the programmes or events. The design and build of the site were carried out by London-based agency Airlock whilst the brilliant Matt Walton produced the whole thing from the BBC side. Cracking job guys. Now over to Dave Grohl talking about learning to play the pillows...

BBC Electric Proms on your iPod

The BBC has announced the first set of Electric Proms gigs to take place in Camdem at the end of October (confirmed artists includes Guillemots and The Who). In addition to the usual website, you can also download a portable version specially tailored for use with iPod Notes. As far as I know this is the first time the BBC has formatted text content specifically for the iPod, which is good news is my book as I often find myself on the move without a net connection, idly twiddling my scroll wheel. One particularly nice feature of iPod Notes, which the Electric Proms guide takes advantage of, is the ability to create a hyperlink to play tracks by any given artist already present on the iPod, thus building a new musical experience around the music you already own. Nice. You can downloaded the zipped guide here.

FOR SALE: Pair of almost new frog slippers

Ariel, November 1960
Originally uploaded by dan taylor.

I picked up a copy of the BBC's staff magazine, Ariel, from November 1960 off eBay recently which was on my doormat when I got home today. A thoroughly absorbing read I have to admit. Scary how little things have changed really with the Director of Television Broadcasting reiterating "the BBC's function to make good things popular and popular things good".

The adverts were inevitably good value. Personal favourites include a quarter page ad for 'Bond', who "suggest hosiery for Xmas, and would be pleased to show you their selection of Men's Wear, including shorts, ties, knitwear, underwear, socks (which include Viennese pure lisle), and a variety of other accessories" and 'Stella hair fashions' who announce their new SPECIAL service which includes a Shampoo and Set, Coffee or Tea and a Sandwich, all for just 11/6.

The 'Mutual Aid' section (a feature "designed for the use of members of staff who have anything they wish to buy or sell") also proved a winner. A selection of the best:

"FOR SALE: Pair of almost new frog slippers, size 6-7. 15s. BH 2766"

"FOR SALE: beautiful mink marmot coat. Full swing back, generous collar and cuffs. Average size. Worn three times. Owner going overseas. £65 o.n.o. Also lady's ice skates, white, size 6, £2. Box 5/5/11."

"I am disposing of my small but choice collection of Georgian drinking glasses at reasonable prices. Seen London. Details from Box 13/5/11."

"Christmas presents? Give gaily coloured love-birds, budgerigars, parakeets, mostly bred outdoors. Phone PABX 2983"

However the real piece de resistance is to be found in the Letters to the Editor. Over to S.W. Budd...

"Sir,

My bathroom scales tell me that my weight is 9 st. 12lb. This worries me a lot because, screwed to the wall outside my office at the new Television Centre there is a small black plaque with white lettering. It reads:

LONDON BUILDING (CONTRACTUAL)
BYE-LAWS 1952
NOTICE
The imposed load on this floor is
not to exceed 85 lb. per sq. ft.
Penalty for contravention £50.

My reading of this notice leaves me in no doubt at all that unless I am careful to distribute my 138 lb. on both feet splayed more than twelve inches apart I run the risk of prosecution under these 1952 bye-laws. This artificial stance I find difficult. Indeed, as the act of walking necessitates the whole of my 138 lb. being imposed alternatively on one foot and then the other (unless I shuffle along with an oscillating gait and thus make myself somewhat conspicuous), I would go so far as to say that it is impossible for me at all times to comply with the regulations covering this fragile edifice.

So where, Mr Editor, do I stand - figuratively as well as literally? I have no choice in the matter of accommodation. I would gladly return even to Woodstock Grove to avoid conflict with the law in this matter. But I am directed to work at the Television Centre, where, as I see it, I must contravene the provisions of the London Bye-laws 1952 every working day from the very moment that I enter the building.

Unless I misunderstand the implication of the notice it seems to me that advertisements for vacancies for jobs at the Television Centre ought, in all fairness, to be prefaced by the phrase 'Applicants of British nationality and weighing (clothed) not more than 6 st. 1 lb. are invited etc. etc.' In the meantime, and for those of us, including Richard Dimbleby, who may be unable to achieve by dieting or other means this necessary qualification, I hope that All.O. can be persuaded to accept as entirely reasonable claims for the reimbursement of any fines (not exceeding £50) imposed upon as under this particular by law.

Yours sincerely,

S. W. Budd"

Pure genius...