[backstage] BBC to launch six-month trial of online archive next year...?
Today's Lovelacemedia is reporting The BBC is to launch a six-month trial of its online archive next year by making 1,000 hours of content available on-demand to 20,000 test participants. The Corporation’s director of future media and technology Ashley Highfield said of the move to eventually place over one million hours of content on the internet: “Our goal is to turn the BBC into an open cultural and creative resource for the nation.” I got this link but unfortunately there's a subscription fee involved, I'll see if I can find someone with one. http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broadcastnowarticle.aspx?intStoryID=166477 Is the same story as reported in October: http://www.spokenword.ac.uk/spokenwordmatters/2006/10/06/bbc-to-pilot-online-archive-2/ Soudns great, would anyone care to comment? Cheers - 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/
[backstage] Chris Vallance from 5 Live covers the Backstage Christmas Bash
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/podsandblogs/2006/12/tis_the_season_to_be_geeky.shtml Enjoy! Ian Forrester || backstage.bbc.co.uk || x83965 - 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/
[backstage] Daq Syndication Update
Hi All, Matt Chadburn from Celebdaq just wrote a entry for us summing up the remix activity going on in the Daq data space. http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2006/12/daq_syndication.html It got me thinking... Why not a New Media Daq? Maybe based on Search Engine rankings or something? You could imagine Sam Sethi would have been worth quite a bit recently, while Loic's value would have dropped recently. Come on you know it would be fun :) Ian Forrester || backstage.bbc.co.uk || x83965 - 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/
Re: [backstage] democracyplayer
Hi Nic! I'm glad to see that Ian is recommending Free Software and that you took the time to check it out - Thanks, and cheers Ian :-) On 17/12/06, Nic James Ferrier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When is auntie going to be publishing feeds so I can see the headlines from the beeb in democracyplayer? The BBC iPlayer is/was kinda similar to Democracy Player, except that people actually use Democracy on a daily basis, and occaisionally pull up the iPlayer when they need to. This is just the same as the way that people actually use their RSS reader on a daily basis, and occaisionally pull up a primitive website without an RSS feed to see its latest. So that's one reason for the BBC to dump their own-brand NIH-syndrome iPlayer and start publishing video feeds you can consume in Democracy or whatever player you like the most, just like they publish RSS feeds of the news stories. But there is a far more important reason the BBC should do this: it should respect our digital rights. Democracy Player is Free Software, which is means it is software that respects our ability to share and change all software. (Its license is at https://develop.participatoryculture.org/democracy/browser/trunk/tv/license.txt and is explained http://www.gnu.org) Its not just applications though - there are Free Software media formats too, such as Ogg audio and Theora video. Despite the existance of technically superior Free Software media formats, many things are only available in proprietary formats, and where the master copies have been discarded, changing them into Free Software formats will reduce their quality. Today this isn't a problem; some formats have been 'reverse engineered' so that Democracy can play them - such as Microsoft Windows Media, Apple Quicktime and Adobe Flash Video. Conspicuously absent is Real Video, which the BBC favours. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html Tomorrow, there is a problem, though, and it will be a big one. Many media files in those formats cannot be played by Democracy or other Free Software video players (such as mplayer which powers Ian's Xbox Media Center.) because those formats can try to lock you out from your media using Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). This is a big problem despite the fact that the locks are easily broken, because it is illegal to unlock them. Its also illegal to make unlocking tools, and to tell people how to make those tools. In the USA this is through the Digital Milennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and in the UK this is through the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD). A norwegian boy of 15 was charged with breaking into his own computer before the EUCD was introduced, and the court at that point could throw it out as ridiculous. Today, a similar lawsuit might be less sensible. The BBC does not support Free Software media formats such as Theroa, and does turn on the locks in the proprietary media formats it does use. This is wrong. Unfortunately, the Backstage community appears uninterested in talking about Free Software media formats, and why they are important. (I don't know why this is.) Without BBC Backstage community support, BBC is unlikely to support Free Software, and so, Nic, you're unlikely to get BBC video in your Democracy Player any time soon. The community support is so important because the BBC managers, such as Ashley Highfield, the BBC director of new media and technology, appears to say that the BBCis all for respecting sharing, contrary to its actions: Ashley Highfield outlined a three-pronged approach to refocus all future BBC digital output and services around three concepts - share, find and play. He said the philosophy of share would be at the heart of what he dubbed bbc.co.uk 2.0. - http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1760999,00.html -- Regards, Dave - 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/
RE: [backstage] Daq Syndication Update
Haven't played it myself but Yahoo and O Reilly have had this out for a couple of years now. The Tech Buzz Game is a fantasy prediction market for high-tech products, concepts, and trends Put your (fantasy) money where your mouth is by buying stock in the technologies you believe will be popular and selling stock in the technologies you think will flop. Its all based on search terms... http://buzz.research.yahoo.com/dm/info/about.html Has anyone actually played it. I signed up once but it looked a bit abstract and didn't end up playing. A tech people one but I bet there is a blogbuzz type thing already. Jem -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ian Forrester Sent: 18 December 2006 14:37 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Daq Syndication Update Hi All, Matt Chadburn from Celebdaq just wrote a entry for us summing up the remix activity going on in the Daq data space. http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2006/12/daq_syndication.html It got me thinking... Why not a New Media Daq? Maybe based on Search Engine rankings or something? You could imagine Sam Sethi would have been worth quite a bit recently, while Loic's value would have dropped recently. Come on you know it would be fun :) Ian Forrester || backstage.bbc.co.uk || x83965 - 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/ - 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/
Re: [backstage] democracyplayer
Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: So that's one reason for the BBC to dump their own-brand NIH-syndrome iPlayer and start publishing video feeds you can consume in Democracy or whatever player you like the most, just like they publish RSS feeds of the news stories. Absolutely. I like that idea a lot. I think there would still be space for the BBC to do something in this area just because they're the BBC. My mum is probably not going to use Democracy but she probably would use something from Auntie. This is one way of looking at what the BBC does. It is an editorial service. It can be an editorial service in the provision of net video as much as it is in terms of news. The BBC does not support Free Software media formats such as Theroa, and does turn on the locks in the proprietary media formats it does use. This is wrong. I agree. I strongly agree. I've worked for GNU for 10 years. I've eaten Chinese food with Richard Stallman. I've been thinking for a while about how to start persuading the BBC of this. I don't think there's a problem persuading people like Ian. I'm pretty sure they understand. One of the reasons I suggested Ian as a replacment to Michael Grade is that the BBC need his level of understanding in that post. There is a lot to change. There are a lot of legal problems in freeing content. But it does need to be freed if the BBC is to remain relevant to Britain. Absolutely. No question. Unfortunately, the Backstage community appears uninterested in talking about Free Software media formats, and why they are important. (I don't know why this is.) I am interested in talking about it. I know others here are. But the trouble is we can't solve the problem. We need to get the management thinking about the rights of the licence payer instead of the rights of the talent. Maybe we should try and get more BBC managers here. -- Nic Ferrier http://www.tapsellferrier.co.uk for all your tapsell ferrier needs - 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/
RE: [backstage] Daq Syndication Update
Ah yes, good memory Jem And you've reminded me of Blogshares - http://www.blogshares.com/ Damm its all been done already! :) Ian Forrester || backstage.bbc.co.uk || x83965 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jeremy Stone Sent: 18 December 2006 17:07 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Daq Syndication Update Haven't played it myself but Yahoo and O Reilly have had this out for a couple of years now. The Tech Buzz Game is a fantasy prediction market for high-tech products, concepts, and trends Put your (fantasy) money where your mouth is by buying stock in the technologies you believe will be popular and selling stock in the technologies you think will flop. Its all based on search terms... http://buzz.research.yahoo.com/dm/info/about.html Has anyone actually played it. I signed up once but it looked a bit abstract and didn't end up playing. A tech people one but I bet there is a blogbuzz type thing already. Jem -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ian Forrester Sent: 18 December 2006 14:37 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Daq Syndication Update Hi All, Matt Chadburn from Celebdaq just wrote a entry for us summing up the remix activity going on in the Daq data space. http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2006/12/daq_syndication.html It got me thinking... Why not a New Media Daq? Maybe based on Search Engine rankings or something? You could imagine Sam Sethi would have been worth quite a bit recently, while Loic's value would have dropped recently. Come on you know it would be fun :) Ian Forrester || backstage.bbc.co.uk || x83965 - 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/ - 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/ - 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/
[backstage] BBC Programme Catalogue live again
Apologies for the interruption in service (a mere, ooh, 5 months) But the Programme Catalogue prototype is back: http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue Details of 966,244 BBC programme dating back to 1938, catogorised into 503,193 subject categories, and mapped onto 1,214,797 contributors. Here's me: http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/contributor/138210 Chock full of RSS, RDF and FOAF Go and play. (it's a Matt Biddulph creation - www.hackdiary.com and FWIW it's done on RoR) - 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/
RE: [backstage] Daq Syndication Update
Haven't played it myself but Yahoo and O Reilly have had this out for a couple of years now. The Tech Buzz Game is a fantasy prediction market for high-tech products, concepts, and trends Always struck me as a very clever way for Yahoo! to get ahead of the curve market information on where to invest, personally... Wisdom of crowds, and all that... - 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/
RE: [backstage] democracyplayer
** This is all my personal point of view ** I'm glad to see that Ian is recommending Free Software and that you took the time to check it out. Nobody mentioned that it was Free Software. I suspect it was recommended by Ian and liked by Nic (and myself) because it's quick, its usable, and it just works. Do users really care about anything else? I suspect not. people actually use their RSS reader on a daily basis RSS useage is pretty low - about 12% last count? RSS feeding media... 1% of users download a podcast on a typical day - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6175728.stm. It's the realm of geeks. Conspicuously absent is Real Video, which the BBC favours I believe the main reason for this is that Real was the prevailing technology when the BBC started streaming all those years ago. It's a legacy issue, and the BBC has made huge investments in kit to stream at the quanities it does... over 30Gbps for the World Cup, I think? formats can try to lock you out from your media using Digital Restrictions Management I'm sure someone here will explain to you that its not really your media, and most of the time nor is it the BBC's to give you. Many people have rights to material the BBC broadcasts - music (songwriters, artists, labels), talent and the production companies. All very, very complicated - there are big depts around here that purely deal with managing rights. Personally - I'd prefer to have DRMed content delivered to me (iPlayer), than no content at all (current situation). the locks are easily broken Nobody is suggesting that any kind of DRM is uncrackable. Of course not - but its 'good enough' to satisify the rights holders. ** /This is all my personal point of view ** Jason On 17/12/06, Nic James Ferrier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When is auntie going to be publishing feeds so I can see the headlines from the beeb in democracyplayer? The BBC iPlayer is/was kinda similar to Democracy Player, except that people actually use Democracy on a daily basis, and occaisionally pull up the iPlayer when they need to. This is just the same as the way that people actually use their RSS reader on a daily basis, and occaisionally pull up a primitive website without an RSS feed to see its latest. So that's one reason for the BBC to dump their own-brand NIH-syndrome iPlayer and start publishing video feeds you can consume in Democracy or whatever player you like the most, just like they publish RSS feeds of the news stories. But there is a far more important reason the BBC should do this: it should respect our digital rights. Democracy Player is Free Software, which is means it is software that respects our ability to share and change all software. (Its license is at https://develop.participatoryculture.org/democracy/browser/trunk/tv/lice nse.txt and is explained http://www.gnu.org) Its not just applications though - there are Free Software media formats too, such as Ogg audio and Theora video. Despite the existance of technically superior Free Software media formats, many things are only available in proprietary formats, and where the master copies have been discarded, changing them into Free Software formats will reduce their quality. Today this isn't a problem; some formats have been 'reverse engineered' so that Democracy can play them - such as Microsoft Windows Media, Apple Quicktime and Adobe Flash Video. Conspicuously absent is Real Video, which the BBC favours. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html Tomorrow, there is a problem, though, and it will be a big one. Many media files in those formats cannot be played by Democracy or other Free Software video players (such as mplayer which powers Ian's Xbox Media Center.) because those formats can try to lock you out from your media using Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). This is a big problem despite the fact that the locks are easily broken, because it is illegal to unlock them. Its also illegal to make unlocking tools, and to tell people how to make those tools. In the USA this is through the Digital Milennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and in the UK this is through the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD). A norwegian boy of 15 was charged with breaking into his own computer before the EUCD was introduced, and the court at that point could throw it out as ridiculous. Today, a similar lawsuit might be less sensible. The BBC does not support Free Software media formats such as Theroa, and does turn on the locks in the proprietary media formats it does use. This is wrong. Unfortunately, the Backstage community appears uninterested in talking about Free Software media formats, and why they are important. (I don't know why this is.) Without BBC Backstage community support, BBC is unlikely to support Free Software, and so, Nic, you're unlikely to get BBC video in your Democracy Player any time soon. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit
RE: [backstage] democracyplayer
I agree. I strongly agree. I've worked for GNU for 10 years. I've eaten Chinese food with Richard Stallman. I've eaten Indian with Mr Stallman I've been thinking for a while about how to start persuading the BBC of this. I don't think there's a problem persuading people like Ian. I'm pretty sure they understand. One of the reasons I suggested Ian as a replacment to Michael Grade is that the BBC need his level of understanding in that post. There is a lot to change. There are a lot of legal problems in freeing content. But it does need to be freed if the BBC is to remain relevant to Britain. Absolutely. No question. Geez, I'd better dust off my suit then :) But seriously there are a lot of people around the BBC that really get it. They are looking at the next 10+ years not what's just around the corner. What's good for the nation and not just what's good for the BBC at the moment. I do think we will get someone like your suggesting up near the top very soon. Unfortunately, the Backstage community appears uninterested in talking about Free Software media formats, and why they are important. (I don't know why this is.) I am interested in talking about it. I know others here are. But the trouble is we can't solve the problem. We need to get the management thinking about the rights of the licence payer instead of the rights of the talent. I'm not so sure its that black and white. Like most things there is a huge amount of grey in between. The BBC does certainly think about the licence payer, audiences are in everything we do. But seriously we do. I would use the turning of a oil tanker to explain the change. It takes time and you can speed things up a little but ultimately it takes time. Time not only for the BBC but for public perception and values. The BBC would not exist without the public and as we move into a much more connected future, I would agree that we need corperations like the BBC more that ever before. As you point out if the BBC did launch a channel on Democracy as such. It might pull in people like my parents and maybe even open their minds to more grassroots content. Hey maybe even inspire them to create their own! On side point - I'm surprised no ones tried turning all the BBC content on YouTube and other darker places into a RSS channel. Not that I'm suggested you do that of course! Maybe we should try and get more BBC managers here. How do you know there not watching this already? Seriously! - 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/
