Objective Productions resident Head of Magic, Anthony Owen, the man with surely the greatest job title in the world, had pitched us a great idea from a couple of magicians by the name of Barry and Stuart. These guys have a great track record on line with many of their clips on You Tube having done great business .

But what did they have in mind?

Well rather than trying to play a trick on the nation why not give a trick to the nation? The ESP test was designed as a slow burning viral, we would launch it on April 1st when there is a real need from the audience for a something a little unusual, but let it breath so that it could remain online permanently. The ESP test is not just a clip that you pass on but a trick that you have to play on someone else so it will obviously take time to get around.

Now the ins and outs of how the trick works, and how you can play it are far better explained by Barry and Stuart than me and you can watch that clip on the BBC Three site or on You Tube, where it is currently the second most favourited entertainment video.

We used bbc.co.uk, BBC Three trails, and social media sites to promote the explanation video. We wanted to let as many people in on the trick as possible because there were always going to be more people who didn't know how to do it.

And looking at the comments it has worked. It has been the BBC Three audience who have taken the trick and played it on their brothers, sisters, parents and friends. We have used audience segmentation to our advantage and because you can only do the trick on the BBC Three website we have delivered a whole new audience to the site. In fact it is the most successful BBC Three clip to date.

Hopefully this will continue to get used for the next couple of years. If people start filming themselves doing the trick then it can have a whole other lease of life with video responses.

Anyway check out the explanation and then go and convince that person over there that they have psychic powers.

Martin Trickey is Multi-Platform Commissioning Executive, BBC Vision.

Well I hope not because Comic Relief all their partners and the BBC have been working flat out since, well since the last one, to make it the best one ever and raise more money for all their projects.

Comic Relief have an amazing talent of bringing people and organisations together to do unimaginable things and raise implausible amounts of money. The BBC is certainly not immune to their charms.

I don't know how many people in the Corporation are involved in Red Nose Day this year but it's a lot. A quick search for Red Nose Day brings up content across the nations and regions.

Even if you are not directly involved you could well be doing something funny for money. I walked into a room in TVC today only to see a colleague dressed as a Canadian Mounty. He had raised £100 already - everyone likes a man in uniform. However I just wanted to highlight a small section of Red Nose Day within the BBC and within Multiplatform to illustrate the kind of "remarkable stuff we can pull off" to quote Will Saunders the MP Executive for Comedy.

Everyone knows how difficult it can be to get your great stuff promoted around BBC Online but Will managed to get a Red Nose banner, in one shape or form, right across the BBC's websites.

Mat Hampson explains how:

The noses have been added across bbc.co.uk using the Barlesque templates, meaning sites around the BBC didn't have to do any extra work for the noses to appear. Each banner is only shown once to each visitor, using cookies to avoid repeats, and to ensure each one turns up at its alotted time - meaning our developers don't have to come into work in the middle of the night to change them."

We don't know what this will do to traffic and ultimately donations but I hope it'll be impressive.

The other thing that people know how difficult it is to do is, get high-quality pictures back from the highest mountain in Africa when you are suffering from altitude sickness. You do know how difficult that is don't you? The fact that Caragh Salisbury and her team, working with Mob Dar's documentary team, managed to get those pictures back is a testament to all the work done by news gathering and the the Natural History Unit in the past. At last we have put it all to the use it was always meant, following Chris Moyles et al up Kilimanjaro to help raise £1.6m.

In addition to this we have seen Robert Webb storm YouTube with his version of "What A Feeling" for Let's Dance and see an exclusive Dragons' Den clip on iPLayer. We can look forward to Comic Relief Does The Apprentice tomorrow night along with the Kili Documentary. On the night to we will be live blogging on the brand spanking new comedy blog working alongside the Comic Relief twitter feed.

I hope you can join us tonight for a real spectacular and if you are doing something to raise money why not let us know here and we can try to flag it up.

Martin Trickey is Multi-Platform Commissioning Executive, BBC Vision.

I'm not sure I can accurately describe what she does, but for the uninitiated, a good starting point could be "Britney Spears: Jamie Lynn Childcare Tips". It made me and another two million people laugh.

Anyway, Bryony decided to make a zombie movie and she asked YouTube to help. I would image she was surprised at the response; I certainly was when I saw it. The level of enthusiasm, commitment and lack of cynicism in the responses was really impressive.

A few days after her post Jonathan Davenport from Hat Trick TV Production company approached controller of BBC Three Danny Cohen and me with an idea for a documentary about Bryony's experience in making the film.

Here is how he described it:

Bryony Makes a Zombie Movie is a big cross-platform summer event that celebrates ultra-low budget film making by following the ups and downs of YouTube star Bryony Matthewman, as she marshals an international online community striving to create a user generated zombie movie. Not only does she have to make the film a reality, she also has a deadline to meet - Halloween 2008, when we'll expect her to throw a huge premiere party involving as many contributors as can make it, all dressed in their finest zombie clobber. The clock is ticking...
 
The online documentary coverage will take the form of two webisodes per week over a 17 week period. As much as possible, we'll follow the real world journey, racing around the country as Bryony seeks mentor advice, meets key members of her community who have volunteered to help and makes sure they do what they said they would do, and blagging all manner of things from actors to fake blood to locations. We'll also be covering squads of volunteers working abroad (there's already talk of a New York and Sydney unit) and rounding up all user suggestions and videos (auditions, make up tests and so on). Finally all 34 episodes will be edited into a 30 minute documentary for broadcast on BBC Three.

We forgave Jonathan the use of the word "webisode" as it is left over from Have I Got News For You, where the teams use it to some comic effect... and, to be honest, he could have said "blogumentary" - as I did... once... never again.

We have no idea about whether Bryony will be able to pull it off and I am quite nervous about the format of near real-time documentary, as it doesn't leave much opportunity for "fixing it in the edit".

Everyone has been working flat out to get it ready as soon as possible, as Bryony is already pushing ahead and we will be launching something similar to what you see below on Tuesday.

I know this isn't the first user-generated movie ever (whatever that means); according to MySpace MyMovie Mash Up winner is due for release this September and Beyond The Rave is certainly doing some great stuff in a similar genre. I guess what makes Bryony's project so interesting is the spontaneity, the scale and the risk she is taking.

I should stress that the BBC Three interest is in just following what happens and in trying out something new; we are not involved in the production of the film but we wish her all the best and hope it works - otherwise it's going to be a long quiet 17 weeks.

If you want to get involved in the movie, the place to start is at the Internet Zombie Movie site - or if you just want to see how it unfolds, then you can watch the documentary every Tuesday and Friday at on BBC "Zombies" where they will be posted as near to 3.33pm as possible and on YouTube the following day.

Martin Trickey is Commissioning Executive, Multi-Platform, BBC Vision

It was an idea from Endemol (of Big Brother fame). When I first read the pitch, it scared the carp out of me (being a keen pescatarian).

The idea was to create a site which allowed the audience / users / acts / people / whomever to show off their talent - not to a panel of experts, but to the public. That in itself is not that new - we have been voting on talent competitions for decades. But the guiding hand of the TV producer was always there to find the cream of the crop. Teams of researchers scoured the country a hundred times over to give us a chance to vote for the next Will Young, Leona Lewis or Girls Aloud. In this instance, we chose to leave it up to the audience to decide who should have the chance of fame, notoriety or infamy.

I could also discuss at length how the idea fits into the Vision Multiplatform Strategy and the BBC THREE re-launch, but Simon Nelson has that covered.

What I think is most interesting about Upstaged is how it challenges the traditional talent show format. The show is unique. In the ten week run, only the last three will be on TV. The previous seven weeks will exist online only and behind the red button from February 4th. Creating a new online talent show with a user vote has been made all the more challenging in the light of the recent concerns around voting and competitions.

We have developed Upstaged at the same time as the BBC's new voting guidelines have been written and we have had to ensure that we adhere to them. The whole premise is to use social networking to get as many fans as possible to look at and rate your act. As I write, one of the most popular acts is a group of YouTubers who have used their extensive networks to garner a great deal of support. Their pitch is well made and humorous. But how well they will fare when if they have to entertain the nation in a Perspex box for a whole evening? I am pretty certain they wouldn’t make it past a traditional panel of entertainment “experts”, but in Upstaged that doesn’t matter.

The whole project is a risk for the BBC. We have no way of influencing who goes onto the stages or what they do when they are in there (as long as it is safe, meets the taste and decency guidelines and doesn’t use animals).

On the other hand, after just five days the site already has a plethora of talented, entertaining and possibly insane acts so if you would like to see six hours of The Scottish Falsetto Sock Theatre or hear The Mandibles play, then you just have to show them your support because no-one at the BBC is going to (unless I just have).

I believe that in a new period of openness in the media, Upstaged is an important project - but what do you think? I would certainly be interested to hear your thoughts on giving control of BBC web and TV space to the audience...

Martin Trickey is Commissioning Executive, Multi-Platform, BBC Vision.