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Waterloo Road

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Press red to catch up with the lives and loves of favourite Waterloo Road ex-pupils including Bolton, Michaela, Janeece, Philip, Aleesha and Paul, as they make their way in the world away from the classroom with mixed results.

Using a combination of scripted episodes (shown online and on red button), fictional social media networks, audio and interactive fan sites, Waterloo Road Reunited allows the audience to extend their relationship with their favourite characters from the screen to online.

Find out more at bbc.co.uk/waterloordroadeunited

Sky / Freesat / Virgin Media:
Wed 2nd March, 8:55pm-4:00am
Wed 9th March, 8:55pm-4:00am

Freeview:
Wed 2nd March, 8:55pm-10:20pm
Wed 9th March, 8:55pm-10:20pm

Read the rest of this entry

Wired podcast this week features an interview with Daniel Danker about the

Daniel is also . Quote from Daniel:

"If you go to ´óÏó´«Ã½.co.uk on iPhone you get our web-based experience, and it's great, it's a really good experience... It's probably one of the best web experiences on mobile that I have seen. In that sense, it was just a matter of prioritisation... It was just about where we would have the biggest impact and it was judged that was iPad and Android."

From Media Guardian:

"We also know that iPlayer usage peaks at around 10pm - when Alan Carr and The Joy of Teen Sex boot up Channel 4, while the News at Ten quietens ITV down for the night. That said, the appetite for live streaming TV on the iPlayer is around a tenth of catch-up popularity... It's a significant move for the ´óÏó´«Ã½, but its impact on fellow broadcasters remains pure theory."

Matt Deegan:

"I was reminded of data partly because of a new innovation in the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s iPlayer. They're now linking out to the on-demand sections of ITV, C4, C5 and other broadcasters... At the moment we're knee-deep in UK Radio Player bits and pieces. We're going to be providing pop-up players and power the search for a number of radio stations. But to do this we need stations to get their data in a fit state."

MetaBroadcast is also pleased:

Paul Clark has responded to some of the comments on his original post about iPlayer linking out to other broadcasters here.

from Media Guardian.

Andrew Bowden is

At some point in December I took over as product manager of the Connected Homepage project at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Button... For me one of the issues was understanding the work "backlog"...Thankfully most of the backlog wasn't written in such incomprehensible lingo, but my arrival gave the team a useful reminder that everyone needs to be able to understand what a backlog item means.

From currybetdotnet: Ian Hunter's latest comment on this subject can be found on his blog post from last week.

Online Journalism blog interviews Bella Hurrell on

"The simple fact that loads of data has been published is not really very interesting to most people."

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ research and development blog has a 8 minute long film about their new production research facility: TC Zero.

From Join Freesat:

Nick Reynolds is Social Media Executive, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Online

Hello, I am Dirk-Willem van Gulik, Chief Technical Architect here at the ´óÏó´«Ã½. An important part of my job is to help the ´óÏó´«Ã½ use the right internet and web technologies - and help the industry and open standards bodies create the internet and web technologies which are right for the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

Now the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is a very special place to work. And one of the main things which makes it so special is "Quality". At the ´óÏó´«Ã½ it is a currency, it is a goal, it is a culture - and as an engineer, it is something you are tasked to deliver.

One of our roles in FM&T is to provide our creative colleagues with tools. The tools they need for broadcast and to create high quality video. This includes tools for "non linear editing" - taking short clips, cutting them to the right length, stringing them together, adding some voice overs and graphics - and then endlessly tuning the resulting video so that it tells a story perfectly.

Usually we shoot hundreds of hours of video, import it onto an editing server, painstakingly tagging or "logging" the content on the way, and then edit each clip into something that makes sense. Because the original video files are so huge (especially in HD), we actually edit low resolution "proxy" versions of each file, and we store edit decisions using timecodes rather than actually mashing up the real video all the time. Then everything can be synced up and "conformed" using the original high-quality versions later on.

Throughout all of this, s play a major role. They are the key 'link' to get right. They ensure that recipes done on the proxy give identical (albeit at a higher resolution) results when repeated on the raw high resolution footage at the end. They ensure that the audio tracks are perfectly synchronized with the clips, that transitions start and end at exactly the right time (and there is not some extra black frame due to a rounding error). They are also important in the creative process - as they let us communicate. We can ask each other to look at a specific frame - or discuss whether we move a cut by a few frames to achieve a particular effect.

If this sounds a bit overly perfectionistic and artistic - then consider this - a cut every 3 seconds or so is quite normal. So if you are off by 1 frame either way - then we're already talking errors of over 2%! Even a very pragmatic engineer would have to agree that that matters!

So timecodes using exact frame references are important. Really important. And the dirty little secret is that the internet has none. NONE! None of today's open standard technologies, or even the dominant proprietary ones, do timecodes right. They are off by one; they round to the nearest half second, they jump to the nearest previous I-frame. Whatever. (In all fairness - there are highly specialist products one can buy and install, usually with special browser plugins, which are accurate, often provided they are used with specially prepared material and within a single LAN. But none of those are conductive to the 'internet' network effect by facilitating collaboration between creative people across organisational barriers.)

Because the first thing a professional needs is a rock solid way to reference each and every individual frame accurately. So they can talk about it. For us - 'video on the web' is a bit as in - today the internet feels like that plastic 1:1 model of a spitfire[9]. It looks like one - but it sure does not fly.

Now over the past two months that landscape has started to radically change. A few of us[1] have been working with the various open standard and open source HTML5 communities. And as of this week, after 120 emails, the bleeding edge development versions of several HTML5 implementations (as used in Safari, Chrome, Mozilla and many others) are now fully frame accurate.

First was (the basis for Safari, Chrome and , which as of revision r77919 has frame accurate playback!

Really. Frame Accurate. Actually even more accurate than just a frame (which is important for audio). You can jump to any point in the video (i.e. 1 hour, 3 minutes, 6 seconds and 5 frames, or to frame 178127) - and it will be exactly at that frame. Not at the nearest i-frame, rounded down to the nearest second, or off by one. No it will be exactly at that very frame.

So today, the HTML5 community has opened a door for us. Which will allow creative people to collaborate and edit professional video on the web.

Do know though that, while key, this is just a first step. There is a lot to still build, so we'll need many hyper creative companies and internet engineers working together to make this work. We need to create a new breed of web based production tools which can interact at the quality levels professionals and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ expect. And we still have issues around UMIDs (unique global references for video) to crack. And even some very basic things (like did you know that a pixel in the video world is actually rectangular, rather than square?!) will need to universally understood between the broadcasting and internet engineers. But boy, getting s, that is a big step!

Again - a big thank you to the open source folks of WebKit and Mozilla. IE9 is not quite there - (progress is tracked at ) but Microsoft has let us know that we "can expect the video-frame-accurate seeking be available when IE9 is final"!

[1] To give credit where credit is due: within the ´óÏó´«Ã½, Raymond Le Gué (programme director at ´óÏó´«Ã½) insisted on having frame accurate playback in the browser. Rob Coenen went on and beyond his call of duty to make this happen, - patiently working with the wider developer community, explaining , why film and television production cannot live without it, proving that it was not working in browsers and helping the developers to fix it. He got help from Bas Schouten (at Mozilla), Andy Armstrong and Dirk-Willem van Gulik (both at the ´óÏó´«Ã½).

But most credit should go to the open standards and open source communities around Webkit, Chrome and Mozilla which made it happen: Andrew Scherkus and the Chromium team get credit for being . The actual fixes where ultimately created by Jer Noble, Eric Carlson (both at Apple) and Chrome developer Andrew Scherkus; while Matthew Gregan and Anthony Hughes did the job for Mozilla.

Dirk-Willem van Gulik is Chief Architect, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Future Media & Tecnology

SMPTE timecode based and frame accurate metadata logging is now possible over the web with HTML5. The image above is a made up screen shot of what a prototype tool to do this might look like.

Today we are launching a new feature in ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer that helps you find programmes from other broadcasters and on demand content providers.

Through metadata-sharing partnerships, you can now find programmes from , , , , and new partner , directly from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer website.

Either by using the 'schedule widget' (see left), or the 'search' function (see below), you will be able to find other video on demand content, and link directly into the playback page of your chosen programme from one of our partners websites.

To do this, feeds are taken from our partners periodically that contain all their programme information, both scheduled and on demand to make the programmes findable through the ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer interface.

Image left shows a Five schedule displayed via ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer 'schedule widget

Image below shows Channel 4' "Shameless" displayed via ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer search function

When the content isn't available the programme title is greyed out and the words (not available) appear beneath the program information:

It's been a while in the making, but this has been an extremely ambitious and technically complicated project. We wanted to get to a user-experience that feels intuitive and not "bolted on", even though the experience is as much reliant on the data feeds from our partners as our own engineering.

We've worked hard with our partners to make sure that we're getting the right data and images for programmes when available, however you may find from time to time there's no images (see image below). We've also updated our FAQ section to include Partner Linking, click .

The occasional lack of images is down to technical limitations and we're working with all partners to rectify this as soon as we can. We really pleased to have six partners for launch but inclusion into this programme is not limited. Any provider of UK on demand content that holds rights to video that has previously been broadcast on an regulated channel can apply to become a ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer partner and have their content added, so we hope to see more partners programmes appear in ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer over time.

More broadly, we think ´óÏó´«Ã½ Online should serve as a hub to support other UK sites and want to double the traffic we send externally. Already the ´óÏó´«Ã½ News product is one of , adding value to the UK online economy and our audiences: this partnership is a good example of how the ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer can follow in those footsteps.

Given the popularity of ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer, we hope this feature will support fellow broadcasters and boost the overall uptake of video on demand.

Most importantly, by helping audiences uncover great digital services that exist elsewhere on the web, we believe we're performing an important public service.

As always I'd welcome your feedback.

Paul Clark is Head of Audience-Facing Services, Programmes and On Demand, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Future Media and Technology

N.B. Clarification 3.50 p.m.: Channel 4 are currently not in the new ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer schedule widget but will be soon (due to technical issues which are being addressed). However C4 are an On Demand Partner, and C4 programmes can be searched for in iPlayer. For example, here are search results for Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, and Hollyoaks.

Last week ´óÏó´«Ã½ updated the terms governing how all ´óÏó´«Ã½ online services on bbc.co.uk can be used. ´óÏó´«Ã½ online services include the website at bbc.co.uk and any other services which allow users to access ´óÏó´«Ã½ content from our websites, such as ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Embedded Media Player, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Podcasts and ´óÏó´«Ã½ RSS Feeds.

We have also produced a set of Frequently Asked Questions to address the most common questions we receive about our online services.

´óÏó´«Ã½ online services enable users to access ´óÏó´«Ã½ content across many kinds of devices (for instance, TVs, PCs, games consoles and handheld/ mobile devices etc). The updated terms apply to all of these devices. As new technologies emerge additional terms can easily be added.

It's clear that personal and business users have different needs from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ online services. For instance, there are more restrictions on the commercial use of our content so we've decided to separate users into these two groups to help businesses understand what they can and can't do without confusing personal users. The new terms also help personal users understand their rights in using ´óÏó´«Ã½ online services, which are different to those of business users.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ aims to be as open and transparent as it can, so we want the terms of use for bbc.co.uk to be clear and easily understandable. This is why the updated terms are drafted in plain English and try to explain in a straightforward way how the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s online services can be used.

The terms for all ´óÏó´«Ã½ online services now also follow a more consistent form. They are divided into general terms of use that apply to all services and 'additional terms' which apply to how specific services are used. They are available to users at the direct point of access to each ´óÏó´«Ã½ online service as well as from one central page on bbc.co.uk . This makes them easier for users to navigate and find.

We want to continue to improve the site, and in the future intend to create a separate page for 'Educational Users' to set how ´óÏó´«Ã½ online services can be used for educational purposes.

The new updated terms are available here. Terms and conditions are always "work in progress" and when they are further updated I will be blogging again to explain any changes.

Conor O'Flaherty is Senior Lawyer, Business Development, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Future Media & Technology

There's been a lively discussion on the issues around archiving websites this week that kicked off with from Adactio blogger Jeremy Keith. He suggested that the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s plans to halve its top level directories were cultural vandalism. This was (though later ) by @bengoldacre and many others. The tenor of the criticism was the same - that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is failing in its duty to preserve a record of its online past.

On Friday on a '´óÏó´«Ã½ fan' who has captured for posterity a record of the 170 sites it's suggested we'll be deleting for efficiency reasons.

And many have claimed this is only the latest failure, after the wiping (or worse) of programmes in the sixties which are seen as classics today. This is not, and never was, part of the plan.

My post last month explained that we were exploring a range of options for managing legacy content. "Deleting the lot" was not one of them, though offline storage is. The debate is quite complex. For example, one of our oldest sites www.bbc.co.uk/otr is still accessible but you could argue that it is a travesty of what its makers intended. Over time various features (for example, search) have ceased to function. You could argue that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ should spend money bringing this site up to date every time technology moves on, but would that be money well spent? The site still offers a number of transcripts of political interviews of the time and we may make it part of the news product. But there still may come a time when people interested in the site are better served by careful offline storage. We are also looking to apply this approach to www.bbc.co.uk/politics97.
Many have argued that www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar should remain accessible to a wide audience. Again, this is an example of a site we are looking to consolidate into a bigger product - in this case the history section of knowledge and learning.

Similarly, assets from many of the 170 sites will be re-presented in forms which can be more easily kept up to date. For instance, www.bbc.co.uk/hamlet has been superseded by /programmes/b00pk71s and placed into a format which will allow the data and assets to be refreshed or editorially changed going forward. The same has been done with .

This is similar to what a site like the Guardian does when it updates its look and feel. A story from 1999 is still viewable but much of its context has gone, at least in the form which is most accessible, online

This means that if we wish to preserve a full record of what we have published, context as well as content, we need to explore a range of options including offline storage.

To restate our intentions: we are moving towards a rational content lifecycle for our websites as practiced by many other sites across the web. The aim is consistent high quality everywhere on the site. We have a number of stand-alone websites which will in due course become obsolete and need to be managed. Some will be consolidated into bigger, persistently managed, content offerings. Others will be moved offline to be preserved.

As our plan develops we'll keep you informed.

Ian Hunter is Managing Editor, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Online

Editor's note: Some people seem to be experiencing difficulties commenting on this post. This is a technical problem or bug which is being investigated. Apologies and please bear with us. Update 1 p.m. - this bug has now been fixed and comments are now open again. Apologies.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer stats pack for January 2011 is now available to download as a pdf.

Here are the headlines from the Communications Team.

• Following a record month in Dec 2010 (145 million requests) in January, ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer received 162 million requests for TV and radio programmes, an increase of 12% month on month, 35% year on year
• Come Fly With Me was the most requested TV programme in January 2011, with five episodes making up all the top five positions, followed by Top Gear and EastEnders. The new series of Hustle and Human Planet were popular as well as films Wall-E and Point Break.
• The most requested radio programme was coverage of The Ashes (Fifth Test, Day 3). Other popular sport included Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup Football, and the Twenty20 Cricket. Non-sporting titles included I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and Radio 2's Gary Barlow Concert.

Bridget Middleton is the Editor of About the ´óÏó´«Ã½

Secret Fortune – Play Along Quiz

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A new for Saturday night game show: The National Lottery "Secret Fortune" ´óÏó´«Ã½1, hosted by Nick Knowles.

By putting your general knowledge to the test, and taking a couple of chances the studio contestants can win big cash prizes. Most digital viewers will be able to press their red button during the show to play along and answer the questions at home.

Available from 12th February on Sky and Freeview.

Sky:
Sat 12th February, 2:30pm-8:50pm
Sat 19th February, 2:30pm-9:10pm

Freeview:
Sat 12th February, 6:00pm-8:50pm
Sat 19th February, 6:00pm-9:10pm

Read the rest of this entry

Here’s a quick demo of the new apps we’ve released today for Android (version 2.2) devices and for the iPad, both of which are available to download now from the Android Market and the Apple iTunes App Store.

Hope you enjoy the apps.

David Madden is Product Manager for mobile ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer

Last week, one section of the C´óÏó´«Ã½ website was relaunched in a radically improved and more easily navigable format, so I'd like to explain what it is that we have done and how we got to where we are.

The first C´óÏó´«Ã½ website

The first incarnation of the C´óÏó´«Ã½ website appeared back in 1995:you can see it being introduced by Toby Anstis. The world was a different place back then, and I should warn you that statistically 3.4 of you will actually die laughing while watching this, so please view with assistance nearby.

I have scoured our archives and there is just no record of the page Toby introduces still in existence; but here I have found a version of the site from 1998:

There are a couple of nice touches here: in those days we used the Comic Sans font which is now prohibited in the contracts of our designers, and it also includes one of my favourite sentences on the entire internet which I have stolen for the title of this blog post:

There was also an animated version of the site, hence the reference to the 'Normal version', but the animated one apparently included 'a massive rocket'.

The digital hub of Children's lives

There are two recurring themes I will write about today, and if we move forward to 1999, you will see the first of them emerging:

Comic Sans has now been dropped, but you also see a great example of the phenomenal breadth of content that is the cornerstone of C´óÏó´«Ã½:

This juxtaposition is a particularly heroic one, but for me, the ability to cover many parts of life, introducing them to children in a way that is both engaging and not patronising is a core strength and indeed essence of C´óÏó´«Ã½, both on TV and online.

We see this again on the C´óÏó´«Ã½ homepage on September 11, 2001.

Managing increasing amounts of content

Later in 2001 we see the first emergence of my second theme: the website struggling to cope with the sheer volume of this content:

This continues in 2002. At this time, C´óÏó´«Ã½ got its own TV channel, and content for younger children was spun off into another channel and website: CBeebies. So, there was now less to show, but how to show it all remained a problem:

In 2005, for the first time, C´óÏó´«Ã½ moved into a technical platform designed to manage content, which addressed some of these problems:

The content remains both varied and magical: as well as a cartoon about spies called The Secret Show, there is some content around 'Saving Planet Earth', again an area of huge concern for children. In the bottom row there are tips for staying safe on the internet, and also children's voices directly on the C´óÏó´«Ã½ homepage in the 'Message Boards' section - albeit (ahem) with a bug on the example above so no messages are actually showing. It worked some a lot of the time.

However, in 2007 the legacy content management system the C´óÏó´«Ã½ website was being phased out and this website went back to being managed editorially. This was accompanied by a fantastic new design:

However, after the first set of 7 shows which are chosen by the C´óÏó´«Ã½ team, it is actually randomised as to which ones appear: every user testing session we go on includes a hugely depressing 30 seconds or so while children pull the lever as many times as is necessary to see the logo of their favourite show.

The relaunched C´óÏó´«Ã½ website: allowing the C´óÏó´«Ã½ audience to find exactly what they want

So what we have we arrived at today? The C´óÏó´«Ã½ homepage remains as above, but if you go into the section marked 'Things To Do' in the top menu you will move into a modern, database driven website.

You will notice that there is not a vast visual difference between this and the previous version of the site: this is both because Things To Do is side by side with sections still in the old system, and a reflection of the visual strength of the current design.

However, over the coming weeks, you will see firstly that the other sections will be are moved into the new system and benefit from all the architectural advantages, and then, when the whole website is ready, we will tweak the design further. This will include replacing the 'Pull' lever navigation: wake is currently planned, but suggestions are welcome. The Games section is coming next, followed by Watch.

I'll post again when the further sections are out, but please let us know what you think.

I'd also like to thank the team for their tremendous efforts in delivering what I think is a fantastic website.

Phil Buckley is Portfolio and Product Manager for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Children's and ´óÏó´«Ã½ Future Media & Technology

Roly Keating on the About the ´óÏó´«Ã½ blog: "Permanent collections - the next stage in opening up the best of the ´óÏó´«Ã½":

...this isn't about all programmes, on all channels. Many of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s most commercially popular titles and archive classics are of course available on DVD, or via pay-TV channels or paid downloads, and long may they continue to be so... But today's announcement confirms that in the online age the task of making more of the wealth of its fantastic archives easily accessible to audiences is an inseparable part of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s mission as a public service broadcaster.

From paidContent: . Daniel Danker's post from yesterday has more details. According to Media Guardian I've been "valiantly"

PUSHON's blog postgot from Lewis Wiltshire (Editor, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport Online) in comments:

To suggest that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ sells these links to external websites, which as you rightly say would be against the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s charter, is clearly a very serious allegation. It's also totally untrue... None of the links to external websites from the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s UK-facing website are sold. All of them are editorially selected because we believe they offer useful onward reading for our audience.

Malcolm Coles but also suggests While Martin Belham at currybetdotnet as:

...a bit of a storm in a teacup...What interests me here is the immediate leap to assume that any bad, out-dated or inappropriate links on a massive editorial site must be there because of a commercial transaction...

Comment on the changes to ´óÏó´«Ã½ Online announced last month continues:

From Unthinkable Consulting

From Adactio: On twitter .

And finally it's

There a at 7 p.m. chaired by Roger Mosey. Details:

How are ´óÏó´«Ã½ sport using social media across sports reporting, commentary and coverage? What are the plans for the future, and what social media plans are in place for ´óÏó´«Ã½'s London 2012 Olympics coverage?... The panel will include: Jake Humphrey, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport presenter - ... Karen Pickering MBE, four-time world champion swimmer, England's most successful Commonwealth Games swimmer ... Jeanette Kwakye, British 100m champion and only Briton to reach Olympics 100m final in last 25 years -...Lewis Wiltshire, Editor of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport website and social media lead for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sport -

You can find a .

Nick Reynolds is Social Media Executive, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Online

There's been a lot of over the last 24 hours about ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer apps for mobile, so I wanted to clarify our plans.

´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer app on an iPad

Having stuck our toe in the water last year with the iPad (initially, we quickly repurposed our big screen version), this new native app is a significant improvement on the existing experience and it's great to be on the Android platform too. Our intention is to be on as many devices and platforms as possible.

Here are the key features on Android and iPad:

• Watch live TV and listen to radio (not previously widely available on mobile devices)
• Access the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s full catalogue of catch-up programmes; seven-days' TV and radio on demand as well as series stacking (as you get on the web)
• A simple and intuitive design with high picture quality and personalised favourites (making the most of the touch-screen UI, and a popular feature on the website)

For iPad it's straightforward, but for technical reasons we can't bring the app to every single Android device. To download and use the app you'll need a device that uses Android version 2.2 and has Adobe Flash 10.1 Player installed. Our Flash streams need a powerful mobile phone processor and a Wi-Fi connection to ensure a smooth viewing experience, which means that only newer, more powerful Android 2.2 devices connected via Wi-Fi can support the Flash 10.1 streaming experience.

If you have an older version of the Android platform, you may be able to upgrade, so please check with your device manufacturer and/or mobile network provider for information about Android system updates. We'll make an official announcement when the apps are live, but we will be interested in any feedback.

Daniel Danker is the General Manager of Future Media & Technology

From The Telegraph: Ian Maude, head of Internet at Enders Analysis is quoted:

"...these cuts, which have been driven by the need to slash budgets, will force the Online team to sharpen its focus which ultimately is a good thing for its audience....most of the sections and websites that are being cut are the least popular part of its output."

reports paidContent. The relevant press release and the full report can be found on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Trust's website.

From the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Research and Development blog: "´óÏó´«Ã½ MyMedia Field Trial Report":

"This EC-funded project studied recommender systems, developing state-of-the-art recommender algorithms and a public source recommender system software framework. In the final year, the project ran four individual fields trials to evaluate the technology in different applications and environments... In the ´óÏó´«Ã½ field trial the target application was web-based radio and TV catchup services. describes the implementation of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ trial, the analysis of the results and the conclusions that followed."

And still at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ R&D blog, Richard Wright asks a provocative question: "Can ´óÏó´«Ã½ R&D save the world's audiovisual heritage?".

"The temptation is to say "Yes we can" but the realistic answer is "Well, not all by ourselves". But we are on the brink of creating something that can make a major difference to the amount of broadcasting content, and other audiovisual content"

JEDDEH! (Tim Sidwell)

"´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer is now a favourite, but being one he hasn't quite worked out how to work that so tends to fire up whatever is on the home page..."

Nick Reynolds is Social Media Executive, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Online