Simon Willison's Weblog: bbc

Quoting James Donohue

2018-07-06T23:02:43+00:00

Over the last twenty years, publishing systems for content on [BBC] News pages have come and gone, having been replaced or made obsolete. Although newer content is published through dynamic web applications that can be readily modified, what lies beneath this sometimes resembles layers of sedimentary rock.

— James Donohue

Tags: bbc, bbcnews, ssl

UK Web Archive: WW2 People's War

2011-02-08T00:58:00+00:00

UK Web Archive: WW2 People's War

Good news: the British Library has already archived the BBC’s WW2 People’s War site (on 22nd May 2006).

Tags: archiving, bbc, britishlibrary, recovered

Erase and rewind

2011-02-07T16:24:00+00:00

Erase and rewind

The BBC plan to delete 172 sites from the bbc.co.uk domain, including WW2 People’s War, described thus: “The BBC asked the public to contribute their memories of World War Two to a website between June 2003 and January 2006. This archive of 47,000 stories and 15,000 images is the result.” Appalling.

Tags: bbc, deletionism, recovered

A new global visual language for the BBC's digital services

2010-02-17T12:34:52+00:00

A new global visual language for the BBC's digital services

Detailed explanation of the BBC’s new “visual language” for their digital properties.

Tags: bbc, design

Around the World by Zeppelin

2010-02-12T22:37:04+00:00

Around the World by Zeppelin

If you’re in the UK, you have four days left to catch this fantastic 90 minute documentary on iPlayer. It covers the first ever flight around the world, in the Graf Zeppelin in 1929, from the point of view of Lady Grace Drummond-Hay, a reporter for the Hearst media empire and the only woman on the voyage. The archive footage is incredible.

Tags: bbc, documentary, zeppelins

Micro Men

2009-10-09T00:47:41+00:00

Micro Men

“Affectionately comic drama about the British home computer boom of the early 1980s.”—aired last night, and on BBC iPlayer for the next week. I thought it was absolutely charming, as well as being a thought provoking history of the rise and fall of the British computer industry in the early 80s.

Tags: bbc, computer-history, computing, history, iplayer, micromen, tv

Quoting Peter Horrocks

2009-07-20T17:20:55+00:00

Most journalists have grown up with a fortress mindset. They have lived and worked in proud institutions with thick walls. Their daily knightly task has been simple: to battle journalists from other fortresses. But the fortresses are crumbling and courtly jousts with fellow journalists are no longer impressing the crowds.

— Peter Horrocks

Tags: bbc, journalism, newspapers, peter-horrocks

John Resig on Glow

2009-07-08T19:24:19+00:00

John Resig on Glow

John criticises Glow for reinventing the wheel—BBC insiders respond in the comments below.

Tags: bbc, glow, javascript, john-resig, libraries

BBC: Glow

2009-07-08T15:25:14+00:00

BBC: Glow

The BBC have released Glow, their jQuery-like JavaScript library developed in house over the past few years. It’s open source under the Apache license.

Via BBC Internet Blog

Tags: bbc, glow, javascript, jquery, open-source

Quoting Anthony Rose

2009-05-23T00:42:54+00:00

iPlayer usage, for streaming, peaks about 10pm - just a little later from TV. But interestingly, iPlayer on the iPhone peaks at about midnight. So people are clearly going to bed with their iPhone and watching in bed. And we also see on the weekends, there's a peak of Saturday and Sunday morning usage at about 8 to 10am in the morning on iPhone.

— Anthony Rose

Tags: bbc, iphone, iplayer

Visualising Radio, pushing, not pulling

2009-01-13T00:59:31+00:00

Visualising Radio, pushing, not pulling

The BBC’s new radio player uses Comet over a Flash XMLsocket connection transport, with an ActiveMQ message queue behind the scenes. I’d like to know what server they’re using to broadcast out to the XMLsocket connections.

Tags: activemq, bbc, comet, duncan-robertson, flash, javascript, xmlsocket

BBC Programmes iPhone webapp experiment

2008-12-08T18:21:51+00:00

BBC Programmes iPhone webapp experiment

More clever BBC hackery from Duncan Robertson, a really classy iPhone web app for viewing the BBC’s TV schedules, built against the BBC Programmes API with source code available.

Tags: bbc, bbcprogrammes, duncan-robertson, iphone

A Matter of Loaf and Death Comes to BBC One This Christmas

2008-11-20T14:26:06+00:00

A Matter of Loaf and Death Comes to BBC One This Christmas

New Wallace and Gromit 30 minute short!

Tags: bbc, loafanddeath, tv, wallaceandgromit

BBC Programmes via Instant Messenger

2008-11-02T15:58:45+00:00

BBC Programmes via Instant Messenger

Neat jabber hack by Duncan Robertson.

Tags: bbc, duncan-robertson, jabber, jabberbot

James May's Big Ideas: Come Fly with Me

2008-09-28T23:07:05+00:00

James May's Big Ideas: Come Fly with Me

The BBC made an hour-long documentary on Ekranoplans! It’s available for the next 21 days on the iPlayer (UK residents only).

Via garethr on Twitter

Tags: bbc, documentary, ekranoplans, iplayer, james-may, tv

We're added some iCal views to BBC Programmes

2008-07-19T23:48:36+00:00

We're added some iCal views to BBC Programmes

BBC /programmes is one of the most exciting public facing parts of the BBC’s online offerings.

Tags: bbc, duncan-robertson, icalendar, slashprogrammes

BBC iPlayer Beta

2008-06-28T21:35:27+00:00

BBC iPlayer Beta

Preview of the new version of the iPlayer. Nice to be able to listen to Radio programmes in the same interface as TV without having to use the cramped popup window.

Tags: bbc, iplayer, radio

Removing Microformats from bbc.co.uk/programmes

2008-06-23T21:04:27+00:00

Removing Microformats from bbc.co.uk/programmes

“Until these issues are resolved the BBC semantic markup standards have been updated to prevent the use of non-human-readable text in abbreviations.”

Tags: abbr, accessibility, bbc, microformats

Web design 2.0 - it's all about the resource and its URL

2007-12-28T23:47:38+00:00

Web design 2.0 - it's all about the resource and its URL

The fact that the BBC is now building things against this kind of theoretical basis is immensely exciting.

Tags: bbc, urls

BBC iPlayer now supports streaming Flash for Mac and Linux

2007-12-14T12:36:47+00:00

BBC iPlayer now supports streaming Flash for Mac and Linux

Absolutely fantastic—it Just Works, you hit the homepage and you can be watching video in seconds. No need to even sign up for an account. I imagine IP ranges are used to block access from outside the UK.

Tags: bbc, flash, iplayer, linux, mac, macos

Perl on Rails - Why the BBC Fails at the Internet

2007-12-03T09:43:36+00:00

Perl on Rails - Why the BBC Fails at the Internet

Depressing explanation of how the BBC’s decision to outsource its technical infrastructure to Siemens has resulted in severe technology limitations, including the need for everything to run on Perl 5.6 (5.8 came out in 2002).

Tags: bbc, perl, siemens, technology

BBC Radio Labs: Perl on Rails

2007-12-01T01:00:48+00:00

BBC Radio Labs: Perl on Rails

BBC engineered built their own Rails clone in Perl to fit in with the BBC’s engineering infrastructure—it’s already running the new programmes guide.

Tags: bbc, perl, rails

BBC Radio 4 - Click On

2007-10-01T23:56:07+00:00

BBC Radio 4 - Click On

I was interviewed on today’s programme, about OpenID. The clip is about 7 minutes in to the program, which is available using RealPlayer and the BBC’s Listen Again service.

Tags: bbc, clickon, listenagain, openid, radio, radio4, realplayer

BBC Olinda digital radio: Social hardware

2007-08-20T21:47:29+00:00

BBC Olinda digital radio: Social hardware

Schulze and Webb made a social radio prototype for the BBC; the IPR will be under an attribution license so manufacturers can run with it without asking for permission first.

Tags: attribution, bbc, digitalradio, hardware, jack-schultz, matt-webb, olinda, radio, schulzeandwebb, social-radio

Quoting Bradley Horowitz

2007-07-01T08:54:00+00:00

There is a problem of managing identity across the internet, so when I say Darren Waters I mean this person and all of the manifestations and representations and personas of that person. The ability to knit those together is a huge challenge and opportunity for us as an industry.

— Bradley Horowitz

Tags: bbc, bradley-horowitz, identity, openid

A Hack for Europe!

2007-04-18T23:24:45+00:00

A Hack for Europe!

Signups are now open for Hack Day Europe, on June 16th and 17th. You need to apply for an invitation.

Tags: bbc, bbcbackstage, hackday, tom-coates, yahoo

Hack Day 2007 - get your diaries out

2007-03-29T14:24:42+00:00

Hack Day 2007 - get your diaries out

Yahoo! UK and the BBC are hosting a public hack day on the weekend of June 16th/17th at Alexandra Palace, complete with a concert from a “top secret” band. The US hack day surprise performance was Beck.

Tags: bbc, hackday, yahoo

On the BBC Annotatable Audio project...

2007-03-19T16:13:46+00:00

On the BBC Annotatable Audio project...

Tom’s write-up of the work done on audio annotation by the BBC Radio and Music Interactive R&D team.

Tags: annotation, bbc, viddler

The BBC's programme catalogue (on Rails)

2005-10-31T19:39:33+00:00

The BBC's programme catalogue (on Rails)

Matt Biddulph’s current project is insanely cool.

Tags: bbc, matt-biddulph, rails

BBC - Comedy - Armando Iannucci

2005-01-16T01:03:00+00:00

BBC - Comedy - Armando Iannucci

Finally, news on a DVD of “The Armando Iannucci Show”.

Tags: bbc, comedy