Following on from feedback received so far (on list and off list), I've got some updates for you all...
**Timing** Holidays, enjoying the sun, etc -- it sounds like many of you have just not had an opportunity to get round to working on your ideas. Therefore we are going to extend the competition by 4 weeks to Monday 3rd October 2005. **Complexity of the TV-Anytime format** A number of people have voiced their concern that the data format is too complicated, although interestingly some have said they have welcomed it's complexity because it means detailed data sets. There is an open source Java parser for TV-Anytime (http://www.bbc.co.uk/opensource/projects/tv_anytime_api/) but I'm aware many of you are not building your prototypes in Java. With this in mind, I'd like to extend the competition to include any other third-party UK TV listings data you would like to use in your prototype, not just our BBC TV-Anytime feed. **Competition scope** A number of people have expressed a view that they felt this was a 'tired' area to look at, and that creating a new EPG or similar listings output wasn't exciting. I'd like to reiterate that we are interested in seeing absolutely **any** ideas you have about new ways of presenting, communicating and promoting TV programme information to users. We're just as aware as you that the value of the traditional TV schedule is rapidly decreasing in an ever more "on demand" world - and part of the his competition is to begin to think about how individual programme information can be presented and promoted in a schedulelessenvironment. I'd like to take the opportunity to reiterate just some of the areas of innovation you might want to look at: (as mentioned in my Open Tech presentation http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/07/backstagebbccou.html) Combine schedules with web services * Such as del.icio.us, technorati, etc * Open up each programme to external annotation Focus on genres * Such as all films, comedies, etc * Signed or subtitled programming * Vertical searching by genre Introduce a social element to a schedule or channel * Bookmark programmes * Rating/voting * Collaborative filtering Alert, client-push, etc * SMS * Email broadcasts * Desktop reminders Integrate the data with existing BBC feeds or external sources * Such as IMDB * Wikipedia * Google Video, Yahoo Video Create new ways of tagging programmes * Align with existing tagged web-based content As you can see, we are not really looking for new takes on the classic EPG grid layout! We genuinely are interested in seeing **any** and **all** ideas you have on how TV programme information can be better presented and communicated to our audience in the future! Especially in an on demand, scheduleless environment. So to confirm: you've now got until Monday 3rd October 2005, you can use any TV listings source you like and we are interested in any ideas you have - not just EPGs. Finally, we'd be happy to send the winner a desktop computer of same value instead of a rackmount server, if that's what they want (we'll ask the winner). And don't forget we've also still a couple of USB MP3 players for two runners up. Good luck with your entries Ben - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
