Re: [backstage] Little iPlayer icon mashup
On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: Guy, I actually did that, but it's not really good on the performance front. Here it is: http://bnb.bpweb.net/iplayerimages/pandorica_with_links.html Very nice x2 :) didn't realise the prog IDs are in there, so eg http://node2.bbcimg.co.uk/iplayer/images/episode/b00qm7zr_640_360.jpg via b00qm7zr curl http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qm7zr.rdf po:short_synopsisLooking at discoveries which suggest ageing is something flexible that can be manipulated./po:short_synopsis ... po:genre rdf:resource=/programmes/genres/factual#genre / po:genre rdf:resource=/programmes/genres/factual/scienceandnature#genre / po:format rdf:resource=/programmes/formats/documentaries#format / Surely some HTML5-type fun can be had with all that? :) Dan - 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] Fwd: On Web Applications, Web Architecture And Resource Identifiers
Forwarding this iPlayer and Backstage-related case study from W3C's Technical Architecture Group list (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2010Apr/0072.html ), since the author T.V Raman (cc:'d) isn't on the backstage list. He asked that if I forward it, to take care also to mention that ... what I wrote up is an outside-in analysis of their app --- with no insight as to what implementation constraints they had. I'd love to hear from their developers as to the rest of the story with respect to how they got here --- that would help us couch recommended design-patterns and anti-patterns in the context of what Web developers have to work with. (I'll sneak in my own jumbled view here: Backstage is more a developer community around the BBC, rather than a separate set of machine interfaces or datasets, although it is sometimes talked about in that way. The BBC Web sites at their developer-friendly best ( /programmes, various music, wildlife things, ...) are already their own API, by virtue of using REST, linked data and webarch habits. The iPlayer work is great for end users but (for all kinds of natural reasons) doesn't seem yet to be angled at developers, re-use etc. --Dan) -- Forwarded message -- From: T.V Raman ra...@google.com Date: Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 12:59 AM Subject: On Web Applications, Web Architecture And Resource Identifiers To: www-...@w3.org See http://xml-applications.blogspot.com/2010/04/on-web-applications-web-architecture.html for some personal observations on the design of present-day Web Applications and the implications for Web Architecture. I'll attach a version here for convenience. On Web Applications, Web Architecture And Resource Identifiers Table of Contents 1 On Web Applications, Web Architecture And Resource Identifiers 1.1 Background 1.2 Case Study: BBCiPlayer And BBC Backstage 1.3 BBC IPlayer 1.4 BBC Backstage 1.5 How It Works At Present 1.6 Observations 2 Conclusion 1 On Web Applications, Web Architecture And Resource Identifiers 1.1 Background As we evolve from a Web of documents (Web 1.0) to a Web of applications (Web 2.0) and eventually Toward 2^W --- Beyond Web 2.0, key underpinnings of Web Architecture such as resource identifiers require careful re-examination. As a member of the W3C's Technical Architecture Group, I have been trying to define Web Architecture in the context of Web applications; a necessary first step toward that goal is to analyze how complex Web applications are implemented on the Web of today. This article will carefully avoid abstract issues such as Resource vs Representation, URIs vs URLs, etc. — and instead focus on more practical considerations such as: What is a URI and what can the user expect to do with it? When dereferencing a URI, what pieces of software does one need to have to retrieve a useful representation of that resource? Here, useful is defined from the perspective of the end-user. Thus, given a URI to a piece of media on the Web, relevant metadata is necessary but not sufficient to be useful — the user needs to be able to retrieve and play the media stream as well. 1.2 Case Study: BBCiPlayer And BBC Backstage The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) provides streaming access to a large amount of radio and television content via a Web application called BBC iPlayer. In addition, BBC Backstage provides a rich data-oriented API to the underlying dataset in the form of linked data. Additionally, program schedules can be downloaded in a number of presentation independent formats such as XML, JSON and YAML. The remaining sections in this article detail what can (and cannot be done) with the information that is readily available from BBCiPlayer and BBC Backstage. In the process, we observe some design patterns (and anti-patterns) found on today's Web, and their efect on building richer Web applications from Web parts. 1.3 BBC IPlayer Using the BBC iPlayer Web application requires: A modern script-enabled browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or IE. Browser plugins for media playback, such as Realplayer or Windows Media. The Adobe Flash plugin for translating playback links on the BBC iPlayer page to their corresponding Realplayer or Windows Media resources. Appropriate media player plugins based on the user's platform, e.g., Realplayer or Windows Media. The Web application as implemented provides a rich, interactive visual interface that is sub-optimal for use from other programs. 1.4 BBC Backstage Given the triple (radio-station, outlet, date) e.g.: (radio4, fm, 2010/04/14) one can retrieve an XML representation of the program schedule using the URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/schedules/fm/2010/04/14.xml as documented on the BBC Backstage site. Alternative serializations such as JSON or YAML can be retrieved by appropriately replacing the .xml extension. This retrieved schedule contains detailed metadata for each program that is broadcast, including a programme id
Re: [backstage] Move to Mailman
On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: Alright alright! I hear you all... So what's the first steps to make this happen? And you guys all sure you want mailman instead of something like a newsgroup or google group? If you go to mailman, folk will start chasing you for the RSS patch, which afaik isn't part of the core install yet... Happy hacking, Dan - 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] BBC iPlayer for Apple TV
On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Dave Addey listma...@addey.com wrote: As another alternative to Boxee and XBMC, you can always use Plex (http://www.plexapp.com/) and my Plex iPlayer plugin (downloadable from Plex's in-app plugin list). I'm using this on a Mac Mini hooked up to a projector, and it works great. I used to use a hacked AppleTV as a media centre, but its closed approach eventually led to my move over to the Mini. Would probably have stuck with the AppleTV if I'd had Tweed's iPlayer plugin at the time :) Plex gives a lot more plugin flexibility - definitely worth a look if you're considering a Mac-based media centre. Plex/Boxee/XBMC are nicely hackable, that's for sure. And Boxee on the AppleTV is nice to try too, though I found it super sluggish to be honest. But what with http://jonathan.tweed.name/2010/02/09/bbc-iplayer-for-apple-tv-an-update/ ... it seems these kinds of hacks aren't approved of. Jonathan reports in that post that one of the reasons he was asked to take it down was: ... 'The plugin was also playing content rights cleared for PC, but not set top box, usage.' Can anyone shed more light on this distinction? With the likes of Boxee on the rise, it's hard to understand where PCs stop and 'set top boxes' start. So if there are big legal/contractual distinctions defined using these terms that affect future possibilities for iPlayer embedding, it'd be nice to have some sense of where the limits might be. cheers, Dan - 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] BBC iPlayer for Apple TV
On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 5:54 PM, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: Well I think this is the issue, in a nutshell. I can't, won't talk for the rest of the BBC but it seems if your streaming iplayer content inside the UK on to your PC device, that's fine. However if you download the files your on the wrong side of a line. If it was that simple that would be great but if your streaming to a consumer device/appliance then your also on the wrong side of the imaginary line. If so, this really makes things difficult for those advocating for 'consumer devices' to better support Web standards, because the distinction seems essentially to be a requirement that Webby stuff be hard to use. If it works nicely 'out of the box' without being a complicated computer-y experience, then it goes in the 'consumer appliance' pile? This gets very tricky when you create a plugin for something like XBMC,Boxee,Plex which can be both a PC and appliance. The notions of device, appliance and PC are very blured but it sounds like deals have been done based on there differences. Rather than us speculate about the potential structure of possible deals, could someone wearing a BBC hat investigate the possibility of sharing some of these definitions? Generally if you take the p*** I'll get shouted at and I'll ask you nicely to close the service/script/prototype :) of course breaking the backstage licence will you a heavy knock at the door :) Publishing some definitions might help :) Dan - 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] BBC RD Move- Video
On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 1:57 PM, Ant Miller ant.mil...@gmail.com wrote: Better late than never I realise that I neglected to flag this short film to the Backstage list. We shot it two weeks ago and very quickly edited and loaded it up last week. Apologies for the video quality- we've been having slight nightmares getting good quality files out of FCP and into iPlayer!. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/2010/01/rd-south-lab-video-report-on-t.shtml I get not available in your area (Amsterdam, fwiw). Can you flip a permissions switch somewhere? cheers, Dan - 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] iPad
On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 11:37 PM, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: So, what does everyone think? (and how much effect will it have on the video situation over the next 18 months or so, do we reckon?) Would make a very luxurious smart and expensive remote control, or if you stuck legs on it, a very very small multi-touch table. I can imagine flipping thru an EPG / video catalogue on it quite happily, maybe skipping through videos to find the right part before a 'send to the big screen' action... Dan - 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] Mail archives
On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 1:43 PM, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I agree but there was no clear idea what we should do except maybe move the whole thing to Mailman? Because the list is public, I guess there is nothing stopping it being archived in multiple places if you know anywhere better? Secret[] Private[x] Public[] Better archives would be great! but should the archiver software refuse to publish anything with a .sig file marked 'Private[x]' ? cheers, Dan - 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] embedding API for iplayer in webapps?
Hi folks A year or two ago, there was a nice proof of concept showing iplayer embedded within Facebook. And there was inconclusive discussion here a while back about APIs. What's the current state of art? Context: In the NoTube project, I am looking at possible lightweight standards for connecting smartphone remotes with Web-based video sites, so that pressing pause/play/rewind/fave/tag etc on your handheld can be communicated up to a javascript/html-based player. I've been testing XMPP so far, and using the XMPP BOSH spec for linking up to the HTML/.js stuff (via Strophe.js). I'm not yet convinced this will be responsive enough for real use, and want to do some tests with real video and radio sites. Having made some quick mockups with HTML5 video, it was quite fun being able to have an iphone app flip between videos running in a Web page; however it was also pretty annoying when the XMPP connection was too slow. I think it's time to make some more realistic tests, and I'd love to try something with iplayer if that is possible now or soon... Pointers? plans? is there any kind of API usable now? searching around I couldn't find much... Dan - 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] iPlayer on Freesat in November.
On 11 Nov 2009, at 14:30, Jon Knight j.p.kni...@lboro.ac.uk wrote: On Wed, 4 Nov 2009, Brian Butterworth wrote: Can you name a single Freeview box with an Ethernet port? My home PC. ;-) but does it support whois++? Dan - 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] Google Wave
On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 6:20 PM, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: Changing the long running threads (don't think I'm not watching) Now Google Wave invites are out there and more of you have had a chance to play with wave. What do people think? And why is no one building a decent client for it? Am I the only excited person? I think most everyone else is embarrassed to admit they'd quite like an invite. I'd quite like an invite. Main thing I'm positive about so far, is that XMPP deserves serious attention and this will help it get some... cheers, Dan - 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 NEWS | Technology | Flash moves on to smart phones
Great news, phone fans! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8287239.stm One of the most common technologies for watching video on a computer will soon be available for most smartphones. Flash software is used to deliver around 75% of online video and is the key technology that underpins websites such as YouTube and Google Video. Until now, many smartphones and netbooks have used a light version of the program, because of the limited processing power of the devices. The new software is intended to work as well on a smartphone as a desktop PC. Adobe, the maker of Flash, said it should be available on most higher-end handsets by 2010, although Apple's iPhone would continue not to use the software. The sort of rich apps we now see being delivered on PCs will now be coming to the phone, Ben Wood, director of mobile research at analyst firm CCS Insight, told BBC News. You'll be able to access a lot of the cool stuff that web designers are coming up with. ... Apple anomaly ... The new software will be available for Windows Mobile, Palm webOS and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year. Trial software for Google Android and the popular Symbian operating systems are expected to be available in early 2010. However, it will not be available for the Apple iPhone, according to Mr Muraka. We're going to need Apple's cooperation, he told BBC News. At the moment Safari (Apple's web browser) doesn't support any kind of plug-in [on the iPhone]. But we'd love to see it on there. Mr Wood said he thought that time would come soon. As momentum builds, I think Apple will have little choice but to embrace it [Flash], he said. Watch this space. Apple did not respond to requests for comment. - 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] idea: Allow access to one's complete iPlayer viewer history
On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Mr I Forrestermail...@cubicgarden.com wrote: Another good idea, this time from nick shanks, http://ideas.welcomebackstage.com/ideatorrent/idea/29/ At present, the iPlayer provides a short sidebar listing one's most recently viewed programmes, I wish to: a) See what I have watched b) See when I have watched it c) See how many times I watch a certain programme d) Reassign some programmes to different individuals that use this account/browser/cookie combination (i.e. exclude Timmy Time from my stats) e) Optionally publish this information publicly, so that viewers with similar habits could find me, for example. He then suggests using RDF to provide a complete usable list. What would it take to make this one happen? Dan - 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] idea: Allow access to one's complete iPlayer viewer history
On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 8:02 PM, Brian Butterworthbriant...@freeview.tv wrote: Ian, It *WAS* in the original iMP. The series link downloaded new shows before they were broadcast and the DRM released them at the broadcast start point. If we are doing a iPlayer Last Played wishlist then I ask genie for my last played list to be stored with my BBC login, not just in the cookies on a single machine. And accessible by OAuth so other Web sites can negotiate access to it by asking the user, without everything having to be public. That feature could encourage quite a nice little ecosystem around the BBC... cheers, Dan - 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] Fwd: Free Transcripts on NPR.org now
NPR transcripts are now - I read - easier to find. I had a quick look around and couldn't find one, but I didn't try that hard. Could be of interest when run through text-summarisers, auto-classifiers etc to make new routes to their content. More on NPR transcripts here - http://help.npr.org/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=5670task=knowledgequestionID=464 And googling for NPR API I find http://www.npr.org/api/index which mentions a Transcript API, http://www.npr.org/templates/apidoc/transcript.php as well as all kinds of other fun stuff (including topic lists eg. http://api.npr.org/list?id=3002). Also here's a blog post on their API - http://www.npr.org/blogs/inside/2008/07/npr_api_is_live_on_nprorg.html It'd be rather nice to see some work on cross-referencing stories across eg. BBC and NPR sites, to get different(-ish) perspectives on the same issues. Having textual transcripts should help with doing that at an approximate level, beyond the metadata NPR provide directly... Dan -- Forwarded message -- From: kimo k...@webnetic.net Date: Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 7:05 PM Subject: [sunlightlabs] Free Transcripts on NPR.org now To: sunlightl...@googlegroups.com http://www.npr.org/ombudsman/2009/08/free_transcripts_now_available.html?ft=1f=17370252 Free Transcripts now Available on NPR.org 3:32 pm August 19, 2009 comments (3) Recommend (1) byline goes here Transcripts of favorite, missed or maddening stories on NPR used to cost $3.95 each, but now they are free on NPR.org. Previously, NPR charged for transcripts because an outside contractor worked fast to prepare them to be available to the library within a few hours of a piece airing. It was a costly expense which NPR did for the benefit of classrooms and deaf audiences, or anyone who wrote to Listener Services and was willing to pay. As of the new NPR.org site re-launch on July 27, over 20,000 visitors had gone online to get transcripts. Now, all you have to do to get a story's text is visit www.NPR.org and click on the transcript link to the right of the audio button, located just below the story's title. Quotes from these transcripts are for non-commercial use only, and may not be used in any other media without attribution to NPR. Why now? Transcripts were once largely the province of librarians and other specialists whose job was to find archival content, often for professional purposes, said Kinsey Wilson, the Senior VP of NPR's Digital Media department. As Web content becomes easier to share and distribute, and search and social media have become important drivers of audience engagement, archival content -- whether in the form of stories or transcripts -- has an entirely different value than it did in the past. NPR took the new website launch as an opportunity to offer free transcripts, according to Laura Soto-Barra, NPR's Senior Librarian. We made a decision to go ahead even though NPR pays a considerable amount of money to produce transcripts on deadline, said Soto-Barra. Transcripts are posted six hours after the shows air, except for Morning Edition's transcripts which are posted four hours after the show is broadcast. We have offered free audio for a long time and we felt that free transcripts were long overdue. New software allows NPR's staff to receive daily metrics and supply data for most popular transcripts yesterday, most popular transcripts for the last seven days and most popular transcript ever. Keep in mind transcript coordinators do their best to catch and correct errors on the text. But since there is a quick turn-around time on transcripts, mistakes can occur. If you notice a spelling or typographical error, please email transcri...@npr.org, where it can be corrected. Soto-Barra said that NPR transcripts may contain minor or significant errors, ranging from the use of ex-patriot instead of expatriate. In another example, a transcriber mistakenly quoted filmmaker John Waters as saying of former Manson follower Leslie Van Houten: She's a yuppie, when what he really said was, She's not a yuppie. Transcript coordinators Dorothy Hickson and Laura Jeffrey do their best to find and correct errors but unfortunately, they cannot proofread every piece, said Soto-Barra. Librarians and transcript coordinators appreciate when someone calls their attention to errors, particularly when they involve name spellings and use of (unintelligible). categories: What is this? Share --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups sunlightlabs group. To post to this group, send email to sunlightl...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sunlightlabs+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sunlightlabs?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~--- - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit
Re: [backstage-developer] 'All-in-one' UK VOD Service..
On 16/7/09 14:46, Jordan wrote: Oh I forgot to mention, I'm getting the details from the other channels in slightly different ways, with some use of XML and some scraping. Channel 4 have told me they're willing to create an API for services like these, so I'm talking to them about that at the moment. Do Channel 4 have anything like this backstage list? cheers, Dan - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk developer discussion group. To unsubscribe, please send an email to majord...@lists.bbc.co.uk with unsubscribe backstage-developer [your email] as the message.
Re: [backstage-developer] Raw data?
On 11/6/09 08:31, Nigel Leeming wrote: Hi I have just been looking around the welcombackstage site, and I am moving my readers over from tv-antime to the /programmes format. I am doing so, to read the entire BBC content and put it in my own triple store as I am writing an rdf browser. What I would really like, is to be able to download the entire set of data in one big zip or backup so I can convert it as I please without having to do the many GETs required against programmes. Is that data available anywhere? It's a lot of data, but if you read up on SPARQL (kind of a Webbified SQL-ish query language for RDF) you should be able to get what you want from the SPARQL servers (endpoints) described in http://welcomebackstage.com/2009/06/bbc-backstage-sparql-endpoint/ Dan - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk developer discussion group. To unsubscribe, please send an email to majord...@lists.bbc.co.uk with unsubscribe backstage-developer [your email] as the message.
Re: [backstage] RDTV launched
On 9/4/09 22:57, Mr I Forrester wrote: Hi All, Just in case you've missed it this piece of news in the middle of a pretty hectic week. We launched a project called RD TV which is a pilot project out of BBC Backstage and BBC RAD Labs. This is really great. Do you do requests? I'd love to see some interviews on Lonclass, and how content is classified/described internally at the BBC... (and I have a few questions :) cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] RDTV launched
On 10/4/09 00:09, Ant Miller wrote: Hmm, I think I know just the people to ask about that one- an episode on metadata, bringing in everyone from /programs to written archives, and not skipping over the inestimable mr Silver Oliver too- that could work! Yes please! I have a bit of time through the NoTube project to help chase interviewees or ideas too. But how far back can we go? Anybody got contacts with folk from the very early days of the BBC archive. When did things first start being catalogued carefully, and how, etc...? Nearby in the Web - http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/catalogue.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/catalogue.shtml?chapter=5 ... great interviews, but it seems like only snippets from something perhaps longer are online? I love hearing about the example searches people ask of the archive, ... really stretches the capabilities of even modern metadata / search tools, and makes you think about what must be buried in the BBC databases if only we knew how to find it again. Dan - 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] Clay Shirky: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable
On 15/3/09 02:32, Andy Halsall wrote: I concur with his viewpoint that business models are being broken faster than new ones can be invented. Business models and distribution methods, the demand for high quality content however remains constant Really? Do we have metrics...? I'd love to see evidence for this intuition. I suppose whatever numbers one had, a chart over time could be made to look constant by making sure the definition of high quality was relative to some notion of current context. cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Clay Shirky: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable
On 15/3/09 02:12, Sean DALY wrote: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/ I was fascinated by this piece. Example: Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. Related theme in Juan Cole's blog recently, http://www.juancole.com/2009/03/end-of-newspapers-or-is-there.html ... suggesting journalism as a professional practice might find a home within universities. cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] IMDA metadata
On 5/3/09 18:41, Robert Binney wrote: Hi Just wondered if any of you guys out there have had any truck with the Internet Media Device Alliance (_http://www.imdalliance.org/_) and where we are with metadata in the world of Internet Radio? Interesting, but I have to say I'm somewhat put off by http://www.imdalliance.org/assembly.php - http://www.imdalliance.org/IMDA%20Presentation%20Membership%20Benefits.pdf eg - Access to IMDA roadmap to see where the industry is going ...and in particular, by What’s the bottom line - Do you want to be a leader or a follower? Do we really need another closed industry consortium? I don't see anything on the site about public accountability, patent policy, and suchlike. Early days, I guess... cheers, Dan - 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] BBC - a typical Google search on a desktop computer produces about 7g (0.25oz) of carbon dioxide
On 12/1/09 11:29, Brian Butterworth wrote: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7823387.stm Does anyone have the working for this? I would LOVE to see it, given that (for a start): a typical Google search on a desktop computer produces about 7g (0.25oz) of carbon dioxide Not to mention all the searches I could've done today, but didn't. Google have thoughtfully pre-indexed billions of documents for me just in case. cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Linguistic discrimination?
Andy Halsall wrote: Of course you've also limited the debate to those who have the capability and the inclination to participate in such a debate on a foreign broadcaster's website, whatever language(s) it's hosted in. Very good point, although I don't know how prevalent internet access is in Venezuela and how common internet cafe type establishments are. Interesting discussion. I've often thought about this topic and selection biases, based on my anecdotal experiences as a largely monolingual visitor who spent 3 months living in Venezuela. Of all the (10x20 I guess) Venezuelans I've met and talked with (some f2f there, some online, some here in Europe), the great majority were all pretty hostile to Chávez. However all were to some degree English speakers; my Spanish simply wasn't up to talking to anyone else. I have no doubt that a more representative cross-section of Venezeuela would've included a lot more Chávez enthusiasts. In my limited experience, there are a good number of 'net cafes around. Well, it's not Cuba, at least. But hanging out on foreign news sites filling in questionaires may well be the kind of activity that is more tempting if conducted from home with flat-rate billing, rather than a pay-per-minute seat in a crowded net cafe. Still, at least asking the survey questions in Spanish would be polite. Even if it doesn't reach the folk living in slums around Caracas, worrying more about food and electricity than TCP/IP, it would be a step in the right direction. There are other mechanisms beyond surveys (eg. reading blogs from community groups) that can help with understanding others' perspectives, but they're not so amenable to simpleminded maths or as cheap to implement as a Web poll... cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Greedy BBC Blocks External Links
Brian Butterworth wrote: http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/greedy-bbc-blocks-external-links/1478/ Greedy BBC Blocks External Links In an outrageous act of selfishness and greed the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/ has decided to stop giving real links to the websites featured in the Related Internet Links section on the right hand side of each news story. I thought *I* went over the top with things like this. Is is any less evil than wikipedia using rel=nofollow on all its external links? I wouldn't call it evil, but How is Google supposed to run a link based algorithm if the most trusted sites stop linking to anybody? is fair comment. I'd be interested to hear why Javascript is not being used instead (either to track click events or to rewrite the HTML in a way that's invisible to spiders). cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Greedy BBC Blocks External Links
Gavin Pearce wrote: ** Sorry I meant within the BBC related links section specifically. My bad for not making it clear. Exactly Brian, I think we are on the same page … my point is why does the BBC need to make use of JavaScript, or NoFollow tags for links to “key” sites related to the story in hand? End-user generated content is a different matter … The only thing I could think of that made sense, was if the journalists were being somehow lobbied by googlejuice-crazed SEO's sending dozens of 'helpful' links or faked up stories in the hope some would end up in a highly ranked sidebar. But this seems implausible at best. BBC journalists should be pretty good at avoiding flimflam, whether SEO-inspired or otherwise. Poking around the SEO websites a bit, I can't find much evidence of that. A few posts like http://www.affiliates4u.com/forums/search-engine-strategies/12692-link-bbc-how-best-gain.html sure, but hardly enough to be worth worrying about. In my own experiments I've been crawling news.bbc.co.uk and trying to use the related link sidebar as implicit topic metadata. I reckon this holds some promise, but now it looks like custom code is needed to deal with the indirected URLs. Not a huge deal but makes the structure just that bit more gnarly... cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] subtitles / closed caption data?
Hi folks What's the latest news w.r.t. chances of getting access to BBC subtitle / closed caption data via nice clean API? Particularly for news content... thanks for any pointers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Audio/Music dataset - Genres for set of MusicBrainz Artists: License terms?
Hi folks Looking back at some data that emerged in time for Mashed, http://mashed-audioandmusic.dyndns.org/musicbrainz_artist_genres.txt.gz via http://mashed-audioandmusic.dyndns.org/#artistgenre [[ Genres for set of MusicBrainz Artists We have built a list of genres for MusicBrainz artists, based on editorial data entered for bbc.co.uk/music. You can download the dataset here: * musicbrainz_artist_genres.txt.gz ]] I started hacking around with this as a way of generating a music preference profile based on a list of artists (eg. from last.fm history, or one's myspace buddies/groups). http://danbri.org/words/2008/06/21/329 Mashed remote contrib: BBC music genres meet last.fm (meets OAuth) I'd like to do some more with this, but the license terms aren't specified. Can it be used commercially? Is attribution required? Does it inherit any constraints from MusicBrainz? Is use in UK vs rest-of-world treated the same, etc etc. It would be great to see this really handy dataset put on a less volatile footing, so others in the musicbrainz++ community can feel more confident building things with it... cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] news.bbc.co.uk - article connectivity graph?
Hi folks I'm thinking about metadata for news articles, and looking at the BBC site I wonder if anyone has a database of the cross-links between articles. Presumably these could be crawled and extracted with a bit of perubyl. eg. today's http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/7520803.stm 'Canoeist's wife guilty of fraud' today, has the following sidebar links: BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS John Darwin Back from the dead Danny Savage explores the Darwins' extraordinary story Timeline of case Trail of mistakes leads to Panama Debt and the Darwins' deceptions The 'torture' of canoe man's sons Greed 'was Darwin's downfall' Hidden door used by John Darwin Why do men go missing? When is a person declared dead? JOHN DARWIN'S REAPPEARANCE Police arrest 'missing canoeist' Canoeist resurfaces five years on Sea search for missing canoeist Of these, the first lot up until Hidden door are published today. Why do men go missing is a general piece from Dec 2007 triggered by earlier reporting on this same story as is When is a missing person declared dead?. The first appearance of the story is Sea search for missing canoeist http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1887151.stm back in 2002. I've been thinking about social bookmarking sites like delicious.com, or microblogging (esp Laconi.ca/identi.ca as they're CC and opensource friendly) fit into this picture. If we look in the RSS feed for BBC news right now, http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/front_page/rss.xml we get the following entry for this item: item titleCanoeist's wife guilty of fraud/title descriptionCanoeist's wife Anne Darwin is convicted of fraudulently claiming money after helping her husband fake his death in an accident./description linkhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/tees/7520803.stm/link guid isPermaLink=falsehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/7520803.stm/guid pubDateWed, 23 Jul 2008 13:01:56 GMT/pubDate categoryTees/category media:thumbnail width=66 height=49 url=http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/4430/jpg/_44300192_johnanne66.jpg/ /item ...which is great and everything, but disconnected from any prior commentary, metadata, ratings, annotations etc associated with earlier appearances of this story. Which makes it hard for machines to be helpful. So I'm wondering if anyone has crawled and extracted this BBC news link graph already. The format changes a bit as you go back through the years, but should be a manageable task. And once it's done, it's done. Basically, if my friends have commented on a news item in FriendFeed, delicious, identi.ca etc., I'd like to treat that as a trigger for drawing my attention to new items in that story as it evolves over the years. Right now the only way I can see to extract a notion of 'evolving story' is from heuristics extracting from these 'related story' hyperlinks. Has anyone had a good poke around in that data, to see what shape it's in? cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Google launches second life killer?
Ian Forrester wrote: http://www.lively.com/html/landing.html I got to say this came out of the blue for me... Why does everything have to be a 'killer'? I guess there's no single shorthand word that you can drop-in as a replacement. Maybe rival? tribute? clone? ... But yay, 3d in the browser! Finally we'll all have VRML homepages and avatars :) Guess which industry will make use of it all first? Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] BBC News : It's not the Gates, it's the bars
David Greaves wrote: Not seen this pop up on the list: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7487060.stm Not so much the message which not everyone agrees with - but I am impressed to see the point-of-view coming from a mainstream source :) Richard Stallman is a mainstream source now? Damn I overslept the revolution again... Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Quick idea for BBC News video
Peter Bowyer wrote: You pretty much talked yourself out of that one, then :-) Peter 2008/7/4 Matt Barber [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hi, just browsing the news and I wanted to send a link to a friend, and was wondering if it would be good to have a switch we could append to the URL, to make the video play automatically. Unsure if this would in some ways be detrimental - i.e. I could then force someone to unwittingly start a video, and at work with the sound up that could cause problems for some people, also maybe it's a feature that noone would use... but yeh, just a thought. As it's said, the signal is the noise! And don't forget browser restarts. Here's the sound of my Firefox 3 re-opening 50 tabs... http://danbri.org/words/2008/05/02/311 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHsI0UBwh5E cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 16:40:58 +0100
Dave Crossland wrote: 2008/7/4 simon [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Surely the main thing is that we preserve our freedom to understand and share the software we use to do our computation. I propose a six-week moratorium on the use of the word 'surely' in this debate. Using software running on other people's servers to do _our_ computation also tramples our freedom, and this is becoming more common with RIA technology. Yup. I find it has really trampled on my freedom to have Internet cables trailing all around the house, and my freedom to be constantly worrying about keeping everything security-patched. Freedom horrible freedom! Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Film Reviews
Andrew Bowden wrote: I see the film reviews are nolonger being updated on the BBC site. Does anyone know why and will this mean that the film reviews xml feeds will no longer be updated. The Movies site (and it's associated section on BBCi) formally closed on 6 May 2008 - they've left the archive online, however there won't be any new reviews. As such, the feeds won't get updated. The ratings DB at http://www.bbc.co.uk/movies/ (assume this is the site you're talking about) still seems open for business. I voted on a couple of movies and it increased the counter, eg. 'Average rating: 4 from 701 votes' in http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/03/28/panic_room_2002_review.shtml# Will the system carry on accepting ratings indefinitely? Is there any way to get a movie ratings data dump out of /cgi-perl/polling/poll.pl ? Seems like a nice collection of data, even if it won't be updated. There are people pages too, even enough to play the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game, albeit on a dataset much smaller than IMDB: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/gateways/star/baconkevin/ If http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/catalogue_offline.shtml were back online, it might be fun to match up the identifiers to find other appearances of the same actors elsewhere in BBCland... cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Open Flash
Dave Crossland wrote: 2008/5/2 Tim Dobson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: simon wrote: Adobe is removing restrictions on the use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications says Aral Balkan: http://aralbalkan.com/1332 Interesting, I thought. I'll be interested to get Dave Crossland's perspective on this. Adobe's dominance in this area of computing is being challenged in two ways - by Microsoft (Silverlight) and GNU (Gnash) - so they are taking evasive action to try and maintain their dominance. Does Gnash really challenge Adobe? Any more than Wine, Samba, dotgnu or Mono seriously challenge Microsoft/Windows dominance? I'm pretty skeptical. OK that's over polite. I think you're mistaken. Rather it reinforces a classic argument but it's an open standard! the spec is (now) out there, ... and look ... Gnash ... there are multiple implementations, even opensource ones. On top of that, things are set up for an equally classic you've tried the rest now try the best argument. If you've committed to Flash, best to use the real thing eh? Users have a choice now: they can get an implementation from the leaders or from the followers. (not my view but a natural spin on things) I see vastly more pressure on Adobe from Silverlight, and from the return of HTML/.js post-Ajax. As W3C explores addition of video and more to HTML, the special benefit of embedding these alien objects in Web pages begins to shrink. Gnash is - don't get me wrong - a great project. But this isn't some David/Goliath triumph. What evidence do you see pointing to Gnash threatening Adobe? cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] The future of the internet
Brian Butterworth wrote: On 01/05/2008, *Martin Belam* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is a piece on this in The Guardian today - he makes some interesting points but at one stage he suggests that Facebook is a closed system, and that nobody can move onto a new social platform because all of their friends are there, so Facebook will rule forever. I would have thought that explains the massive continued success of MySpace and Friends Reunitedoh, hang on a second It's interesting the way the Facebook can pull data from other systems (ie, your email contacts list) but has no export. I thought about writing one, I wondered if I would get blocked from doing it... http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6135226994topic=3088 http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~mrowe/foafgenerator.html I think you can get a lot of data out, but not emails of your buddys (without screenscraping, per plaxo/scoble fuss earlier this year). Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] The future of the internet
Matt Barber wrote: It's interesting the way the Facebook can pull data from other systems (ie, your email contacts list) but has no export. I thought about writing one, I wondered if I would get blocked from doing it... I *think* as long as you're logged in as you, and they are your contacts, I don't see why not - because you could essentially go through and write each one down on paper, or copy/paste the data. So getting your own bot to do it doesn't seem that bad? One thing however, the email addresses are rendered in graphical form on profile pages, so a bit of OCR would be required. But do share your results if you try it. Yup, esp if anyone gets that OCR thing working with free tools. But I imagine the Facebook team must feel 'damned if we do, damned if we don't'... I just found http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7376738.stm The BBC's technology programme Click has exposed a security flaw in the social networking site Facebook which could compromise privacy. Oh no! we can't get data out of Facebook! Oh no! we can get data out of Facebook! Having been on the 'give us our data back' side of the fence for years, I'm starting to think that argument's been won, and the real issue is how we deal with having gotten our data back. Especially when 'our' is a bit vague; how much information about you do I have a right to extract if we're Facebook buddies? http://www.slideshare.net/danbri/fear-of-a-foaf-planet http://www.slideshare.net/danbri/whatever-i-can-get Figuring out how to help real users make sane choices here, without trying to explain OpenID/Oauth or worse to non-geeks, ... that's the hard problem. I don't think this is just about Facebook hoarding data. Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] b00b3zjr
Paul Tweedy wrote: In some circumstances, yes HTTP_REFERER is fine. However query strings are arguably a useful method in some circumstances - feeds being a prime one. Reading a feed in Bloglines for example wouldn't give you a good way of tracking. So then that leads to the question of do you want two ways of tracking where people came from, which is technology dependent, or one way? Which fits in better with workflows, stats reporting etc etc. Yes indeed, and to be open and clear on the purpose of this - the value in the query string is appended to the item page URI depending the logical page area in which it appears - Featured, Most Popular, etc - so we can do clickthrough measurement of how traffic arrives at item pages and how the site design is performing in relation to the content - which can inform future iterations/tweaks of the UI to make it better. Plain old HTTP_REFERER (which we certainly do also have for general user journey reporting) can't give us this granularity. It's a bit of a hack, certainly, but not the worst one we could have come up with. :) Paul (BBC) Makes sense, thanks for the explanation... --Dan - 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] b00b3zjr
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00b3zjr.shtml?src=ip_mp [[ Page Three Teens Duration: 60 minutes Documentary following Chelsea White, a teenager considering a career as a Page 3 girl, as she learns about the glamour industry for the two months leading up her 18th birthday. (Available for 6 more days) ]] Whose cool URI is that? We are not worthy :) Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] b00b3zjr
Jonathan Tweed wrote:
But the right thing to do in this example. A resource shouldn't have
different URLs depending on where you click from, so if you can't track
the outgoing link for some reason then a query parameter seems correct
to me.
Logging HTTP_REFERER isn't an option? Bummer-ouch. I'd have guessed it'd
be well worth capturing that information...
But as you already know, I do definitely prefer the much nicer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00b3zjr for the URL itself ;-)
Is a complete list of URLs public anywhere? :)
Otherwise, I'm sure if you ever expose a SPARQL endpoint, you'll be
seeing the likes of...
SELECT ?uri, ?t where
{
?uri :title ?t .
FILTER regex(str(?uri), b00b3z) .
}
cheers,
Dan
--
http://danbri.org/
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Re: [backstage] b00b3zjr
Iain Wallace wrote: Jonathan Tweed wrote: But the right thing to do in this example. A resource shouldn't have different URLs depending on where you click from, so if you can't track the outgoing link for some reason then a query parameter seems correct to me. Logging HTTP_REFERER isn't an option? Bummer-ouch. I'd have guessed it'd be well worth capturing that information... HTTP referrer information is browser optional and therefore not guaranteed to be there on all requests. Indeed it's one option to turn it off completely in Firefox. Well I might print out the page and photocopy it and snail-mail it to everyone I know. The Web's missing a lot of guaranteees, but it still works. Sometimes good enough is ... good enough. I suspect HTTP_REFERER would be more than good enough here. Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Ashley Highfield leaves BBC (almost)
Tim Duckett wrote: On 15 Apr 2008, at 05:41, Brian Butterworth wrote: Oh right, you mean like this... http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/14/bbc.digitalmedia1 The former Microsoft executive Erik Huggers Give the guy a break - so, he worked for Microsoft in the past. Let's assume for a moment that his joining the BBC was based on his merits - and not some lizard-controlled Illuminati plot to make Windows take over the world - and he might, just might, have learnt a thing or two about delivering projects despite messy internal politics after spending nine years at Microsoft. Given the history of the projects so far, I'd suggest those are skills that the BBC could use now and again. If he still owns stock or has some other conflict of interest, that would be one thing. But to relentlessly slag him off because of who he worked for in the past is simplistic at best, and plays right into the hands of those who dismiss the whole topic of interoperability as muesli-crunching irrelevance at worst.Personally, I think some of the decisions that have been taken in the past have sucked. But I don't see how this kind of ad hominem abuse is going to help persuade people that there is a better way of doing things. /rant Yay! :) Can we go back to talking about computers again now please? Else everybody be vewwy vewwy quiet lest we awaken the DRM permathread... cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Ashley Highfield leaves BBC (almost)
Dear backstage.co.uk admins, These DRM discussions are just so much fun, ... maybe they deserve a whole email list all to themselves? cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] Please release Perl on Rails as Free Software
Martin Belam wrote: The difference is that the BBC could drop the probability to zero by not requiring the use of proprietary software... Or by closing the list if it was deemed to be an unhelpful echo chamber that wasn't beneficial to the BBC for the amount of money spent on the backstage.bbc.co.uk project Martin Belam wrote: The difference is that the BBC could drop the probability to zero by not requiring the use of proprietary software... Or by closing the list if it was deemed to be an unhelpful echo chamber that wasn't beneficial to the BBC for the amount of money spent on the backstage.bbc.co.uk project I just found this gem: http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html [[ We now have a brand new list that is totally devoted to technical developer questions and answers - no wide ranging discussions about DRM and the like, just pure tech development talk straight from the community. ... It works in exactly the same way as the main backstage list but we’re going to take a much firmer view on what is discussed there – the developer list will be completely developer focused, and by that I mean messages along the lines of ‘Where’s the Weather API stuff?’ or ‘I’ve just built X give it a go’. ]] blog post (which I missed when it happened) http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/10/new_backstage_d.html Seems to be archived and searchable at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ Testing the waters... http://www.mail-archive.com/search?q=DRMl=backstage-developer%40lists.bbc.co.uk 0 matches No matches were found for DRM ... 0 matches No matches were found for freedom (compare http://www.mail-archive.com/search?q=DRMl=backstage%40lists.bbc.co.uk 913 hits, television 254, freedom 169 ) I'm in :) cheers, Dan - 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] Wii News Channel
Barry Carlyon wrote: I had heard that one of the student radio stations was building a flash player for their radio stream for the wii….. FWIW Flash works in Opera on the wii, http://www.opera.com/products/devices/nintendo/ Dan - 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] W3C and the Overton window
Ian Forrester wrote: Seeing how everyone's so vocal about the BBC recently, I thought it was worth turning our attention to the W3C (yeah it wasn't as slick a transition as it should have been) Mark Pilgrim outlines the friction which is building up between developers in the field and the tall towers of the W3C? http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/08/23/overton-window In recent weeks I’ve noticed a burst of chatter about certain W3C standards, the working groups that define them, and the W3C itself. I have followed (and occasionally participated in) web standards discussions for several years, and I’ve been trying put this recent flurry of activity in context. I believe it can best be explained in terms of the Overton window. Someone on the list already suggested Backstage should be more involved in the W3C standard process. And I agree... But I was wondering what everyone else thinks? I think http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/166 should be on the reading list here. My brief take: now is the time for W3C to move out of the industry consortium / browser wars mode of operation, and to catch up with the ways of working popularised by the opensource movement: most importantly - publically visible, bloggable, google-able archives for all technical discussion. This is happening, but too slowly. Also there's a need for a participation model that allows greater involvement for the vast mass of humanity who happen not to be employed by one of the few hundred organisations that pay annual membership fees to the W3C. W3C is my favourite standards organisation, and not just 'cos I was on W3C staff for 6 years! There are some brilliant people and fantastic works in the W3C community. But it is really being held back, and increasingly damaged, by its membership and participation model, which forces it to conflate the 'evolution of the Web' with 'the creation and update of formal Web standards'. The promise of exciting new standards shaped by W3C membership is the engine that keeps membership fees rolling in. But we've reached a point I fear where yet more standards are damaging, and what is needed instead is integration, integration, integration. Not such an exciting driver for those considering paying W3C member fees. But sorely needed... imho etc., Dan -- http://danbri.org/ - 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] BBC Programme Catalogue
* Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2006-04-26 14:01+0100] Live now Looks like Mysql needs restarting... http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/admin/backstage/socket/mysql.sock' (111) Dan - 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] IM Persian news bot
* Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2006-03-08 17:03-] wow. much, much respect Mario... +1 Yes, this is wonderful, and I've heard only positive feedback so far. It'd be great to see this go into (some level of) production usage. (I'd be happy to help in any way...) cheers, Dan - 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] RE: IM Persian news bot
* Ian Forrester [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2006-03-07 15:49-] Following a conversation with Dan Brickley, who pointed me to Ian Forrester's post on BBC Persian being filtered in Iran (see http://www.cubicgarden.com/blojsom/blog/cubicgarden/culture/?permalink=BBC-Persian-filtered-out-of-Iran-what-can-we-do.html), I am now running a first version of a Persian (Farsi) news bot, along similar lines as the newsflash bots. As Dan suggested, this could be one additional means of bypassing the Iranian firewall... Sounds like a good idea ;) I'll let the Persian service know, as they might be very interested in your news bot. Yes, this looks great. Nice work Mario! Whether this approach actually gets adopted is probably beyond the scope of this list. I'm interested in what the Persian service think of it... I posted a screen grab at http://www.flickr.com/photos/danbri/109247073/in/photostream/ Currently the bot is only running on MSN, and although I managed to get the right-to-left issue to work using the official MSN client (in my case Windows Live Messenger beta), it seems that not all 3rd party clients support the X-MMS-IM-Format field (where I set the R-to-L orientation), so for example Trillian ignores it and displays the messages incorrectly L-to-R. I haven't tried other clients yet. Interesting issue, I'm trying it in Gaim which has great Unicode and multiple language support. Good to see the I18N support in these tools getting exercised... I don't speak/read Farsi or Arabic, so can't really tell if the content is ok (although I compared it visually to what's on the BBC website to get some idea). I use the nearly-full-text feed at http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/persian/index.xml (I believe Ian set that up?), and have noticed some strange HTML tags in the feeds, all of which (rightly or wrongly) also make it into the bot messages.. in addition, the menu-type texts are all in English for now, and should really be translated. Maybe if I speak to someone in the Persian service they might be able to let you know if it looks and reads correctly. Can you let me know what tags your getting as I might be outputting too much. I saw some p and img/ , strong /p and even p/ in one article, amongst other fragments. The bot is on MSN as [EMAIL PROTECTED]. Once you join, you'll get the 10 most recent news headlines from http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/persian/index.xml every hour, to which you can respond with a number (1 to 10) to see more details for the news headline you're interested in (I decided to change this from the way the English news flashes work due to the feeds containing much more text, so it wasn't practical to send all news details in one message). --- Ok I've tested your bot and it seems to work really well. It would be great to get this on other networks. I think we may have someone from Jabber who could help on this list. Yup, Jabber should at least have clean I18N. For Persian in particular I think Yahoo IM would be good; anecdotally, it seems more popular than MSN in Iran. I don't know of any hard stats though. So this is definitely a cool piece of technology. I wonder now whether it risks getting generic IM blocked in Iran... Dan In Gaim the Persian text is correctly displayed right to left and English text is left to right. It looks great! :) - 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] Hourly news flashes via IM
* Gordon Joly [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2006-02-24 21:58+] At 21:37 + 23/2/06, Nick B wrote: I'm trying it with MSN Messenger, and have received nothing in days. Cannot use the command leave. And trying to join again says I'm already registered. Is it borked? Works for me. Here is the latest * AIM IM with BBCNews Flash. I guess the AIM version works then. I also signed up for MSN flavour of the bot, but haven't had any newsflashes... Dan - 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/
