Tag: bbc

My BBC talk at Ravensbourne College

Ravensbourne

So on Tuesday afternoon, I gave a lecture at Ravensbourne College to a mix of interaction design, broadcast and graphic design students. John told me, it just needed to be inspiring. So I was torn between my day job at BBC Backstage and things I think about daily. So I started with my presentation about what is backstage. I got to the 3rd slide before the whole lecture turned into a dynamic conversation about the BBC. It was fantastic, the students and staff wanted to know where the BBC was going in the future. Along that path we explorered the questions of advertising on the BBC's international facing website and the Microsoft BBC agreement. Miles did say this

I did find myself reminded of John Battelle's description of AltaVista as it was fucked over by DEC (just prior to the sale to Compaq): “a mammal chained to a dinosaur more likely than not will get trampled.

While I don't know the details of the agreement, there were lots of thoughts and worries about the future of non-DRM content coming out of the BBC. Someone mentioned Dirac and asked whats happened to that? There was also a serious debate about why we didn't write our own DRM? The suggestion was that DRM in understandable if we can't make up our mind between DRM and NoDRM at this point. And you know what thats actually a good question, even if we internally couldn't build it. Maybe someone else could have from a netrual position. I've heard good things about Open Source DRM but not seen any marjor adopters. This would be an ideal project for the BBC to trial. Hey maybe even a Backstage Project? Someone (i think miles) did ask what would happen if someone today created a videoplayer which looks and feels like the BBC player which is being worked on? I said we would certainly be interested in it from a prototype point of view and if it was that good, who knows what might happen.

Although most of this could sound like BBC bashing, it was far from that. It was concerned people wanting to understand why certain choices were being made without them and wondering what they could do to make sure the BBC values lives on in some form into the future.

For any students who might be reading, I uploaded the raw html from the cache of my desktop RSS reader. I hope to clean it up a little more in the near future.

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BBC Weather feeds

BBC Weather

After all the fuss, harsh words and long wait for BBC weather feeds. They are now here for use under the BBC Backstage licence. Its been something we've been sitting on for a while because we wanted to make sure it was all correct and wouldn't get pulled after a few days. So here's the official announcement from Kathryn at BBC Weather

I am very pleased to inform you that BBC Weather's first RSS feeds are now live. Links to them can be found on all 5 day forecast pages: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml

The feeds are located at http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/weather/feeds/rss/{world|id}/{location_id}.xml

E.g. http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/weather/feeds/rss/5day/id/2315.xml and http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/weather/feeds/rss/5day/world/4567.xml

All of the 7379 feeds are updated at least* twice a day (at approximately 8AM/PM *GMT*).

We are planning more feeds, and improvements to these ones as well (e.g. dynamic generation of feeds, which will allow us to offer different flavours such as Atom; additional content such as tide times and current observations (Met Office willing); additional semantic mark-up).

In the meantime we look forward to seeing your BBC Weather widgets in the Backstage Widgets Compo: http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2006/10/widgets_competi.html

I have included geo:lat/long tags in all entries to facilitate mappy mashups. Enjoy!

I look forward to hearing your comments, concerns and ideas.

Best,
Kass

I think we're going to have to do something for the first person to map the BBC weather feeds on top of a Google map.

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BBC Backstage Widget Competition

So those talented guys at Backstage.bbc.co.uk just launched a Widget competition. The prizes include a Origami PC and Nokia Internet Tablet but the other interesting thing is there will a meetup event where the winners will be announced.

I'm still new to widget creation so, I'm also going to try making a couple and link to any resources which I find useful. Like we talked about internally this is not simply a competition where we put it out there and expect submissions back. This is a conversation, and we will be listening and learning during the month. So good luck and subscribe to the mailing list for more information.

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BBC issues recently

BBC TV Centre

The BBC has been getting quite a lot of attention recently. I obviously can't say anything from a BBC perpective only my own personal view. So in lawyer speak, these are the views of myself and myself alone. They are not the and should not be taken as the official view of the BBC.

So the first and most public is the announcement about the Memo of Understanding with Microsoft. Via Slashdot

Microsoft has signed a memorandum of understanding with the BBC for 'strategic partnerships' in the development of next-generation digital broadcasting techniques. They are also speaking to other companies such as Real and Linden Labs. Windows Media Centre platform, Windows Live Messenger application and the Xbox 360 console have all been suggested as potential gateways for BBC content. It is unclear how this impacts on existing BBC research projects such as Dirac, although it is understood that the BBC would face heavy criticism if its content was only available via Microsoft products.

Slashdot has lots of critism and we didn't get a glowing review in the Guardian either. Dave's been sending me updates from the Free Software foundation UK list but Miles outlays a view point which I think quite a few people have (I assumed this was ok to publish miles?).

Any technology alliance the BBC enters into with a commercial software and DRM vendor should explicitly define open standards and open content. At the present time, where DRM implementations are not interoperable because of commercial competition in the DRM market, and software vendors' desire to dominate that market, producing proprietary and DRMed content locks the partnership in, and locks consumers in. Whilst it may be legitimate for a company to do this, a broadcaster that is funded by a mandatory public subscription (the license fee), and which has, in effect, as a direct result, a quasi-monopoly, should not abuse its position, and shaft a public which has no choice.

The cynic in me believes broadcasters are doing this on purpose – because they want “IP TV” to fail so they can prolong their existing business models.

Certainly these are very strong words.

And on to the other issue… Thanks to Bahi for this heads up. There's been talk about the BBC ripping off Flickr photographs. Ripping off and Scandal are very strong words indeed but if you do actually follow the Scotland Flickr discussion. The bit which got everyones backs up, lies in this part of what the editor of BBC Scotland says.

I wondered if anyone would be willing to give me advance permission to use their pictures as and when the need arises? We'd still always send you a message telling you we'd used a picture and we'd credit you in the alt tag (and possibly the caption as well).

All I can say is this was always going to be a difficult thing to explain.

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Senior Producer at backstage.bbc.co.uk

So before the modern equivalent of the rumour mills start rolling (maybe blogs or more like myspace and bebo). I'd like to let you all know that I've been offered the position of Senior producer of backstage.bbc.co.uk and of course I have accepted it. This does mean crossing London everyday (SE18 – Woolwich Aresenal to W12 – White City and back everyday) but this also means my main job is to open up the BBC a little more everyday. What more can you ask for? I already have plans in my head for increasing the profile of backstage and of course providing more public feeds and apis. There's also lots of areas where backstage could go which hasn't been visited yet. So don't worry folks I'm on the case with fresh thoughts and enthusiasm like you've never seen before. But to start off, we need to work out the details such as a start date, etc. Hey and theres the first british barcamp and geekdinner's to be arranged. Talking of which… if anyone knows a place where we could hold a geekdinner in Brighton on the 9th September please do let me know.

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Kevin Anderson joins the Guardian

Kevin and Suw

At long last, I can blog that Kevin Anderson our very forward thinking Worldservice journalist is leaving for a brand new position that he helped create.

This is probably the worst kept secret, which is why I'm a journalist and not a member of the intelligence services, but I can finally announce that I'm under new ownership. After almost eight years with the BBC, I'm joining the Guardian as their Head of Blogging and Interaction.

Head of Blogging and Interaction for the Guardian, is certainly a step on from the BBC World have your say programme. Its going to be a shame, Kevin worked so hard to get the BBC blogging and became a very good voice for genuine and authentic conversation with our audience. Anyway, I really wish him so much luck with his new position. I'm expecting big things from Kevin, and I might actually start reading the Guardian more in the future.

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About Ben’s disclosure of the BBC’s weather feeds

Ben Metcalfe

I forgot I haven't publicly said anything about Ben Metcalfe highlighting the direct urls of the weather feeds. My take on the whole thing is simple – Security through obscurity.

A system relying on security through obscurity may have theoretical or actual security vulnerabilities, but its owners or designers believe that the flaws are not known, and that attackers are unlikely to find them.

Security through or by obscurity, is generally a bad idea. By the BBC developer putting the urls inside a plain text javascript file, he or she was relying on Security through obscurity. Ben simply disclosed this information to the world. You could say well he should have let the BBC know, but like software vulnerabilities company's will sit on this information for years because its not important enough. Nope theres no douht in my mind that Ben did the right thing, and maybe taking down the blog post was a good idea for the BBC. We should be thankful and hell this might have spurred some movement on the backstage front? I do wonder if the javascript file in question still has the urls inside of it?

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BBC announcements

Rather than comment on what's going on in the BBC, I'll just outline some of the major points. If I feel brave later, I may care to comment.

  • BBC Knowledge, Entertainment, Fiction, Nations and Childrens will now be BBC Vision
  • There will be a new division which sits inside of BBC Vision to encorage Indies input
  • New media is now gone and will now be Future media and Technology (FMT)
  • Radio and Music will be platform netrual and will be come BBC Audio and Music

  • BBC News and Sports will be part of BBC Journalism
  • BBC Finance and BBC People will stay about the same
  • Audience and Marketing will be a core part of what we do everywhere.
  • Creative Digital Simple Open (CDSO)
  • If you don't respect the BBC values, maybe the BBC isn't the correct place for you.

Some observations about the Questions and Answers with Mark Thompson after his higher level speech.

Someone mentions there has always been a Radio and TV division since 1936, whats going on? Mark mentions iplayer, downloading content and talks about how under the divisions people are much more closely aligned. Mark hints at the Longtail of content and how that could inspire programme makers. Mark gets grilled about the 360 degree commisioning process and how it could be unfair to indies. Radio and Music drama could fit in Audio and Music or even Vision, Mark suggests they would sit in Audio and Music. Someone suggets iplayer is kind of dull but also offers a huge training issue which can not be ignored. Bouns are on the menu once again, Mark Thompson and Mark Byford talk about supporting 10% bouns (currently at 30%). Mark Thompson is challenged with a question about local independance and how everythings is heading towards centralisation, Mark mentions how we have 23 CMS to make content for the web. Someone ask Ashley Highfield (head of future media and technology) if the technologies should also learn tradional technology like Radio and TV, he agrees. Mark says the new BBC model will be transisional and that we need to be flexiable, envolve and change.

You can see the offical announcment here now

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We media wrap up and coverage

So We Media 2006 has finally closed its doors and a lot of tension has died down now. This gives me a chance to go over some of the low and highs of the conference

A couple of highs to get us started, Suw Charmans talk at the We Media Fringe event in which she explains why We Media 2006 sucked filmed by James Cox. Robin for setting up the Fringe event with help from a couple other people. Kevin Anderson for staying true to himself and pointing out this classic from Helen Boaden I want to know who checks the bloggers… There is something very tricky or even dangerious about writing about people who you work with or for but in my honest opinion Kevin did a great job on this.

Some lows now. Although the We media fringe event was in full swing by the time I got there (7:30pm) and had attracted quite a few people, it seemed to lack the tightness of a well planned event. I actually left half way through because I needed to get something to eat. But even then I would have left pretty soon anyway. Nico Macdonald does a good job explaining where things started to go wrong. But lets not get ahead of ourselves here. The biggest fundimental low was the lack of conversation in the we media conference its self. Not only did it lack conversation but it also stuck up an even larger wall between the mainstream and pro-amatures (bloggers, etc). I won't even go over this issue again, because honestly Suw has this so covered in her post Where's the we in WeMedia? I have to dig out a couple of quotes.

The lack of understanding of blogs, bloggers and participatory media shown was astonishing, and the false dichotomy of journalists vs. bloggers was emphasised by the speakers throughout the day. It was very disappointing indeed, because I had hoped that we had moved beyond these sorts of non-issues and into the real substance of when, why and how you begin participatory media projects.

Now although I'm on tricky ground here, I wanted to at least put up the point Suw makes about the digital assassins section of Wemedia.

And a new level of embarrassment. Halfway through the day, the BBC trotted out 25 'digital assassins', primarily young people (I think to show that they were hip wiv da yoof) who were brought in to talk to the attendees and give them the opportunity to interact with a real live blogger. Oh, please. Could that have been any more condescending.

It reminded me of a story a friend of mine told me about a comedy show that he went to once in Chicago, where one of the comedians asked the audience, 'Who's never met a gay man before?' and then went up and introduced himself to whomever raised their hand. It felt a bit like the BBC were saying 'Who's never met a blogger before?' and then helpfully provided some specimens for attendees to look at. Cringeworthy.

My experience of being a digital assassin was very bad due to there being no BBC facilitator on the table, a group of guys from Qualcomm who didn't seem that interested in anything I had to say and a generally very quiet bunch of suited men around the table. Others like Rachel Clarkes seems to be much better. But before I go on, I have to say thanks to the guys who arranged the section and did a good job of getting us all there on time. But back to the table with the Qualcomm guys. One of the things which strikes directly with my thinking is this from Suw

All in all, the day was very insular and introspective, with a lot of people appearing to think that they are doing very well, thankyouverymuch, without the input of anyone who knows what they're talking about.

The Qualcomm guys asked me if I knew who they were and at that point I should have realised what was coming really. So I said yes, and replied with you guys build that brew platform for mobile phones right? One of them pipe up and says, yes and said very happily So our job is done, because you've hear of us and brew. I was seriously dumb founded and proceded to say the only reason why I had heard of Brew, was because it failed where Java/MDIP succeded. And honestly they really did not care about that, they seemed to think just because I had heard of it for good or bad reasons was enough. While on the subject of questioning at Table 13, some more classics. I was asked about my blog and if I had advertising on it? My answer of no, came to shock them. Why would you spend some much time writing if your not going to get paid for it? I said about it being my authentic voice and talked about social capital but they were really struggling to understand any of it. I guess these things simply don't translate to the business world easily. You can imagine the questions I got when geekdinner was mentioned by myself. One of the questions was something like Why would anyone go to a social gathering of people in London? I think by then, I had all but given up. However their minds changed ever so quickly when Rachel Clarke stood up and started talking about Geekdinner on another table. Me and Sarah Blow owe her one for that.

So getting back to higher level idea of the conference. I totally missed thursday at Retuers for personal reasons but heard things didn't get much better with the change of venue. Sara at work told me that she had gone over there and was equally amazed as Lisa Goldman, that a session about the Middle east only included Arab men.

During the lunch break at today's We Media conference, I discovered that the first post-prandial panel was going to be about media in the Middle East. I happened to be talking to a Persian-British woman journalist, who is half Jewish and half Muslim, at the time; when we discovered that the panelists were all male Arab journalists in their fifties, we looked at each other and rolled our eyes.

And honestly you can't make this up…

The panelists included Rami Khoury, the editor of the Lebanese Daily Star; Jihad Ali Ballout, Director of Al Arabiya's corporate communications; Saleh Ngem of BBC's Arabic service; and from Iraq by satellite Zuhair Al-Jezairy of Aswat Al Iraq.

None of them had heard of blogs. None of them was interested in the fact that Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Lebanese and Saudi bloggers are writing and talking to and about each other and, linking to one another. None of them was interested to learn that quite a few of us are discovering that the Middle Eastern media is doing a pretty crappy job of getting beyond the cliches, the slogans and the dogma, and that we made that discovery through blogs.

On the plus side I heard very good things about Dave Sifrys session and Rachel from North London's session. From Rachels own blog, you can't help but get a little emotional about how she got into blogging.

This blog is dedicated to the victims of all bomb attacks. It's also dedicated to two men who changed my life when they told me I was a writer and must keep writing

This is the real side of We media, the people whos lives are changed forever. Sometimes Mainstream media and even some bloggers forget this. I'll put up my own hands and say I sometimes forget this even. There are real people behind the stories and they would like us all to know them a little better that we do right now. During the time I was listening and attending We media 2006, I didn't hear much in the way of an authentic conversation. Its such a shame because there is great opptunity on both sides if we stop pointing fingers and just start talking. Mainstream media needs us and in turn we do need them too. I guess that is actually what the word we in we media is all about.

Oh by the way, there's a Global party at 7pm this Sunday (7th May 2006).

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The BBC 2.0, just got slashdotted

Its been a while now but Novus Ordo just submitted to Slashdot On The BBC 2.0. Its only gone up about a hour ago but its already recieved 80 comments. Quite a few sink into the usual BBC bias and BBC World vs BBC arguements. But there's a interesting related question about Slashdot's CSS redesign content and the BBC's reboot.bbc.co.uk contest. Lots of moaning about the fact you can't actually download or stream any clips or movies from the catalogue in a thread called great resource but incomplete.

On the plus side I caught ths comment by Lobais.

A thing I really think they should do 'to keep the BBC relevant in the digital age.' is to make xmltvfiles of all their tv and radio programme info. This would make them very useful for a lot of people, and sure wouldn't be very hard.

Although this only recieved a +1 and insightful mark, its easy to forget about the simple things we could be doing more of. Although there is a arguement that the Programme catalogues is just that. Plus as Pldms pointed out, we provide 7 day listings for all channels in TV anytime XML format.

A comment which I couldn't help but agree with was this one by Larry Lightbulb.

The first and possibly only thing they should change about the BBC home page is the fact that it's designed to be viewed at a resolution of 800×600. Surely a company as big as the BBC is capable of producing a web site that utilizes all of the screen space available in a browser window?

See I tend to strongly agree with this but I understand the reasons why its sticking to a 800 format. Personally I don't think there's any excuse for a 800 format when your using XHTML+CSS (unless thats the desired effect). So when we move in that direction I would like to see the 800 constrait dropped.

I'll be keeping a eye on the incoming comments…

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Rebooting the BBC home page

Reboot top logo
Reboot bottom logo

Help us discover what bbc.co.uk 2.0 looks like.
We don't just want you to redesign the bbc.co.uk homepage, we want you take it all the way back to the drawing board…
Throw out the existing content, throw out the existing focus, throw out the existing expectations, limitations and assumptions – and help reboot:bbc.co.uk

So here is your chance to reinvent the BBC.co.uk home/portal/aggregator site. There are some great prizes available to the winner and runner-ups. Now I know there's been lots of talk about the rip off issue, which Ben has covered really well here in an entry titled we want to reboot not rip-off!. Here's one of the quotes.

…why not have “redesign the Ten O'Clock News” or “redesign The Archers” competitions. Or you could do all this yourselves, which is what I'm paying you over a hundred quid a year for.

But Ben Metcalfe returns with a fantastic comment which I feel sums it up nicely.

But not only does that not seem right, but that's not a BBC approach. Auntie doesn't always know best.

And thats where things get tricky I guess. Being a BBC employee, you would instantly think I would rush to the help of the BBC. But honestly I think the BBC is trying to really open up. Reboot is a way to encorage not only developers but anyone who has had that thought, why isn't the bbc website like this? Well here's a chance to put that thought in to action. And yes, thats my thought, not the BBC's.

On the plus side Martin Belam has showed his thinking behind the clean Google like BBC home page. I've also confirmed with Ben that reboot is open to everyone living outside the UK. So what you all waiting for? I have some ideas but there maybe a little too radical and niche to win a prize. Something to maybe inspire your thinking? Well how about the newly launched BBC Programme Catalogue prototype?

At only just shy of 1million BBC Radio and TV programmes over 75 years its pretty amazing to browse around. And don't forget every single part has RDF and ATOM data which can be easily used as part of a Mashup or something else. Pretty impressive stuff you must agree? Now back to rebooting…

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Digital Assassins and the BBC changes

So once again under one of those should I be talking about BBC (work) on my personal blog type questions. I can't help but talk about the things which happened yesterday (Tuesday 25th April) at the BBC. The Guardian calls it a radical revamp of the site, but internally it was known as the Creative future or how the BBC is going to address the challenges of the on demand world? It seemed to be pushed as a launch but actually it was more like just a event to publise audience research and the thinking which has gone into how we should be moving forward. I have no problem with this, but I can see how people got confused or even frustrated with the lack of a solid plan. Not that I'm saying there is no plan.

In my mind, it seemed to be saying, we know were going in this direction but we honestly do not know what the future holds, so we need to be very flexable to changes. I'm sure the Cluetrain something like this too.To me itts the BBC way of saying change is the only constant. There also seems to be a true commitment to onlline as our future and the push to open up the BBC is being taken very seriously now. Metadata was also mention highly and I'm really happy this has been communicated from high. Now this makes metadata authoring a even more valuable piece of time in our journalistic practice. I picked up on this quote from Mark Thompson and wrote it down.

The BBC should no longer think of itself as a public broadcaster of TV and radio and some newmedia on the side. We should aim to deliver public service content to our audiences in what ever media and on whatever device makes sense for them

On a different but actually realted topic, the we media conference rolls into London for the first time in May. The conference attracts people from all the leading online publishing houses including the new york times, washington post, bbc, retuers, etc. Its a high cost ticket affair which someone like myself couldn't even imagine affording on my current BBC salary. But I do have the chance to spend the afternoon with some of these publishing heads in a session called meet the digital assassins.

As part of this session I have been asked to document a week worth of media consumption. So far this is what I've drafted

The first thing I do when getting up in the mornings, is play the daily 15min podcast Slashdot review. This usually lasts the time i'm in the shower and gives me a great overview of what's going on. I'm using a simple FM transmitter on my workstation which means I simply have a cheap shower radio tuned in on the right frequency.
In the hour it takes to get ready and eat breakfast, etc. I tend to leave iTunes playing in most recently added order. Like the cheap shower radio, the radio downstairs in the kitchen also plays whatever iTunes is playing. I've never known a time when I've switched over to a Traditional radio station in the morning or evening.

My home workstation automaticly downloads, podcasts, video, everything. It then syncs the latest content with my laptop and I manually copy stuff to my mobile phone's flash card.

Every work day on the train for my 30min journey from Woolwich to Charing Cross, I have my laptop out reading through my general news and blogs category in my RSS reader (GreatNews). I mark anything which needs more of my attention “to be read later” or “to be read sometime in the future.” Recently I've been blogging on the train more than reading.
At the same time, during the in total hour journey, I have my mobile phone playing podcasts or once in a while video content if I have to take the tube to White City.

During lunch times I turn to my laptop and either blog, read more news from all the other categories or watch one of the main videocasts which are freely available. These include Rocketboom, MobuzzTV, DLTV, Diggnation, etc.

I find my offline social network usually fills me in on anything I've missed, and I can usually catch up by downloading it the day after. The only newspaper type thing I pick up and flick through is the Ariel (internal BBC paper) while making Tea.

The train ride home gives me equal time to read through feeds and I usually try and go a little later so I can get a seat and sit with my laptop on my lap and read. If not I have a RSS reader on my pocketpc and mobile phone. But I miss being able to tag content/entries with these devices.
When at home, me and my wife usually settle down and watch something via our modified xbox while eating dinner. The content viewed is a real mixture of publicly available video, downloads of states programmes and globally available content from the web. It all comes to me over my broadband connection, and is the reason why I don't own a PVR or DVR.
UK nova is well known about and I guess highly watched by UK broadcasters but the service they provide is simply fantastic and fits with the way I and my wife consume and engage with video content.

The video content is a real mix of mainstream content like Lost, Daily Show, Simpsons, etc, and content from the net (such as Hak.5, CommandN, etc) mixed in. We tend to just pick and choose depending on our moods.

On the weekends, if were in and doing things around the house. We tend to stick on a playlist of podcasts. My Subscriptions includes the simply amazing IT Conversations, Engadget, Security now, This week in Tech, Digital Planet, etc.

And I guess, thats my usual week.

Pretty weird to some I guess, but thats pretty much my week.

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BBC’s World have your say, hearts blogs

World have your say

Although this is work stuff, I can't help but say at long last the World Have Your Say team have got there blog and its now live. Yes I did have a hand in its path out of the BBC firewall and on to the internet. Now some of you may say well the BBC has had blogs for a long time now, so whats the big deal? And I somewhat agree, but except for a few good examples like Island blogging and the Urdu blog. IMHO, Our part in the blogosphere has been kind of hap-hazard. (my own words not the BBC). Without going into details or pointing fingers, its quite true that we've not really jumped into the pool. Or rather we have rarely engaged with what blogging is truely about. Yes we've done blogs but not really let it take us away. Some would say this is a good thing but I personally think there are some places where we could be doing this. Which leads me on to World Have Your Say. See Mark Sandell almost says it all in this one entry. But what Mark does not say Kevin _strange attractor_ Anderson says in his entry about the blog. A couple of quotes from Cluetrain comes to mind.

73: You're invited, but it's our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!

This team gets it, they not only have decided to get rid of there traditonal BBC pages and presence. But there shoes are off and there starting to paddle in the pool, ready to jump right in.

I don't think its a bad thing to say that somethings had to be held back for the launch. These would include a blogroll, categories (was working on this today) and even trackbacks. But trust me keep an eye on the blog, because there's going to be some suprises which I simply can not mention here. Honestly I'm really excited about World have your say. Much more so that the Nick Robinson's blog, which launched in Dec 2005 to a lot of praise and cheers. Oh by the way Paul Mason's official BBC blog is worth checking out if your a Newsnight fan. I don't believe he's blogging anywhere else now?But I could be wrong.

Obviously this isn't the end of the blogs in the BBC, there is more to come. Its no secret that I'm working on the World Update blog which is written by Dan Damon. Dan is very fired up about his blog too and has also in the past been known to use Typepad to host his own personal or unoffical BBC blog. I feel he will also take a deep dive in the pool of the blogosphere and will be frankly honest about his experiences. I'm also looking forward to being able to subscribe to his blog and not have to read a stupidly long page.

So generally its a good day for the BBC and the Blogosphere. I'll be interested to hear what others think.

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Geek and Geekhag podcast number six – semantic what?

My and Sarah's sixth podcast is now available online. Enjoy and please leave a comment if you've enjoyed it or simply hate it.

This time we reflect on a few blog posts from me and Sarah's personal blogs. And I attempt to do a short introducation to the semantic web and tagging vs categories.

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