Today we are launching the new BBC Connected Red Button on the Virgin TiVo service with plans to roll out the service to a range of connected TVs and operators in 2013.

Connected Red Button brings TV, radio and BBC online together in the simplest way possible. (See the press release for more details.)

The service is presented in a feature rich yet powerfully simple experience that is suitable for just about anyone.

• Discover more shows from your favourite channel or station.
• Enjoy programmes from channels even when they're off air: watch programmes from BBC Three, BBC Four, CBBC or CBeebies day or night.
• Catch programmes you missed with BBC iPlayer at the press of a button.
• Read or watch the latest news clips and stories that matter to you.
• Never miss the action from the sports you're passionate about including live events, highlights and headlines.
• Find out about the weather in your area.

Yet while this is a significant milestone in the evolution of Red Button, it is only the beginning.

The journey to Connected Red Button began in 2011 with a vision for the next generation of Red Button services underscored by a number of core product principles.

The vision set out by Daniel Danker in his blog post was to reimagine Red Button for a new generation of connected TV audiences, retaining the simplicity, usability and range of content available in the original.

We aimed to harness the latest in TV and internet technology to create a personalised user experience with rich curated content and to set a new standard of interaction on the big-screen - but most of all to make the result so effortless and natural that the technology becomes invisible and the content takes centre stage.

Viewing content by channel on BBC Connected Red Button

While Connected Red Button is a long term strategic product, it in no way signals the demise of traditional BBC Red Button.

Twenty million people a month press red on the BBC and our ambition is to develop the service and increase the size of our audience.

Connected Red Button makes its debut on Virgin TiVo, an open platform that enables innovation through third party services.

Virgin set-top boxes are connected to the internet, a requirement for the new Connected Red Button. Virgin TiVo subscribers were also, until now, unable to receive traditional BBC Red Button services so we're delighted to bring Connected Red Button to this audience.

Throughout 2012 the BBC has also been engaging with a number of TV manufacturers and platform operators regarding our connected TV application plans and the related technical specifications and certification requirements.

We'll be rolling out Connected Red Button to a range of connected TV devices during 2013 and in many cases 2012 TVs will also be upgraded to Connected Red Button.

Over time, as audiences use televisions and set-top boxes which are increasingly connected we expect to migrate them from the traditional Red Button to the new Connected Red Button.

With forecasts of up to 22 million connected TVs installed in UK homes by the end of 2016 Connected Red Button is well positioned as an enhanced Red Button service for users who already have or intend to buy supported connected televisions for their homes.

There is lots of new content and features planned for the coming year including improved event support, more content from your favourite programmes and better personalisation.

Discover more BBC content

We also see a world where mobile and tablet editions team up with Connected Red Button on the big screen to deliver some truly immersive and versatile experiences.

The Connected Red Button programme was managed as a series of agile delivery projects blending concept work, user centred interaction design, testing and audience trials with iterative software development.

The product was engineered using BDD (behaviour-driven development) and TDD (test-driven development) encouraging close collaboration between product owners, testers, software engineers and designers.

Crucially engineering teams worked shoulder-to-shoulder with editorial teams to jointly create an experience that blends technology and content in a brand new way for audiences, capitalising on the BBC's unique expertise in high quality curation.

The service is a new and important addition to the BBC's Red Button portfolio. We hope you enjoy using the service and we look forward to receiving feedback over the coming days, weeks and months.

There will be a follow up post outlining the technical and UX considerations for Connected Red Button on TiVo coming soon.

Matt Coulson is the Executive Product Manager for Red Button in BBC TV and Mobile Platforms.

The section brings together all of the BBC's audio and video music clips and allows you to browse them in collections compiled by presenters and staff.

You can also search by artist, most popular, recently added choices and last chance to see/hear. You can play clips whilst looking for others, find out more about the artists you are enjoying and explore similar clips.

This is an alpha release and we hope to capture your feedback and incorporate improvements as we move towards beta and final production, and as such you may notice a few bugs or issues with the service. Please check out our FAQ for known issues before notifying us of any problems.

This alpha follows extensive user research (interviews & concept testing) conducted in the autumn of 2009 to find out what audiences wanted from a BBC music site. Key asks were;

more audio/video clips of music sessions and interviews

a highly accessible, immediate and intuitive interface

more control over the playback experience through custom views, and powerful search and recommendation tools

for content to be organised into editorially curated collections to provide ideas, inspiration, context, influences and other facets of good storytelling

By aggregating all BBC off-schedule short form clip content into a single hub or 'showcase', we hope we've met some of those needs with a new offering also that brings the following benefits:

Use of the new BBC GEL (Global Experience Language) design that puts the AV centre stage and emphasises accessibility and distinctiveness

Choices around how you view content (grid, expanded and list views)

'Browse while Play' lets you watch/listen continuously while browsing

A Play Bar and Play Queue which manages your playback experience while you browse

A selection of Collections made by our own DJs and Presenters

Powerful 'Artist Quick Find' and Browse tools that enable you to look for interesting content in a number of ways

'More like this' feature provides clips from same and similar artists promoting extended listening

Lots of linking to related BBC content including news, reviews and blogs as well as relevant info from /programmes and our radio network brand page

Around 2,800 clips at launch with more to come, content is regularly refreshed

This is an early build so we see this alpha as a great opportunity for the development team to get your thoughts, either via the blog or via the feedback form and to us help shape the product you want.

Image: Screenshot of the BBC Music AV Showcase design

Technically speaking, the Music Showcase has a lot going on under the hood. It's built top to toe on the Forge (Zend, Java, PHP, JS, MVC) technology stack and I think it's the BBC's first all-AJAX site for clip serving

The aggregation and publishing model is also quite sophisticated; music production staff across the UK will use a tool called iBroadcast to tag and encode clips. The website then uses a Java service layer to query central data repositories to acquire, sort and publish clips into the correct views on the website.

Over the next few days some of the team will be posting more details on design choices, technical implementation and content production and workflows behind the product, so come back later in the week if you're interested in getting more technical info. To find out more about the great content and editorial thinking behind the Music Showcase click here.

We're trying to put the music centre stage while providing discovery, search, sharing and participation tools that bring the music to life without being overly distractive or intrusive.

We hope you like it, and whether through posts here or via FAQs we'd love your feedback.

Matt Coulson is Executive Product Manager, Radio & Music Player Services, Programmes & On-demand, BBC Future Media & Technology