BBC Internet Blog - Sophie Walpole

h2g2: an update

Sophie Walpole Sophie Walpole — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:26:51 +0000

The first stage of the MOT for h2g2 was held last week. Taking part were representatives from strategy, audience research, commissioning and of course the h2g2 team themselves led by Nick. The opening MOT session usually takes about two hours and then we agree a timetable for reporting and next steps. Those of us who lead the reviews try to make the atmosphere in the room positive and collaborative in order to really dig into the issues as honestly and objectively as possible. Here are some of the headlines...

In terms of audience size and appreciation h2g2 does well (150k or so weekly users) and is clearly much loved by those who use it (and thanks to all of you who contributed so thoughtfully to this blog). Here are some of the slides from the audience research presentation and below them some of the thoughts and questions that came out of the discussion.

What works?

The editorial quality of the best of The Guide, the "serendipity factor" and the very strong, collaborative community.

What needs improving?

The look and feel is woefully outdated now - but thankfully the new design is in hand. Links to the rest of BBC Online and the BBC's output could be improved.

What is the strategic fit?

This was the longest part of the discussion. h2g2 was brought into the BBC in another era, and while the community is strong and purposeful and the Guide has some great content, it is very hard to describe what it is to anyone unfamiliar with it. While h2g2 does to some degree "inform, educate or entertain" is this enough in itself to justify future funding? How can we build on the welcoming and collaborative atmosphere of the community? Can it be used to reach out to new users and introduce them to the benefits of online interactivity? Lots of questions. Our next task is to set about finding the answers...

Sophie Walpole is a Portfolio Executive, BBC Online.

Ed's note: Nick Reynolds is away on holiday at the moment but will be back in a week or so and will let us know more about future plans for h2g2. (PM)
Ed's update: I should have credited the "42" image used in the first slide at the top of the post. It was created by Wikipedia user Martinultima and posted under this licence: Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. Apologies and thanks to Shoobot for pointing this out. The original image can be found here. (PM)

What's On Is Off

Sophie Walpole Sophie Walpole — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:31:54 +0000

Some of you may have already noticed the big red banner on our What's On site announcing that, after almost a decade of sterling service the current website is finally being retired and a whole new range of programme discovery sites and services (e.g. TV, Radio 2) are popping up all over BBC Online.

What's On was designed as a website to provide information to help people find programmes on the BBC's other scheduled platforms - TV and Radio. Its limitations therefore became obvious with on demand developments such as red button and of course the iPlayer. Also, the What's On pages expired after 24 hours which was frustrating for users wanting to find information from a past schedule or programme.

We're not replacing it with a like-for-like service but with a range of new entry points to BBC programming all based on our programme information platform - PiPs. We are providing easily navigable schedules for all TV & Radio services for seven days ahead and as far back as PiPs data exists for all the BBC's output, from BBC One East Midlands to Radio 1 and into the past and all at nicely hackable URLs.

We haven't quite sorted out how best to offer a mulit-channel "grid" view of the schedule but we are working on it and would welcome your views.

Last time I closed something down on BBC Online I was described as a cow which caused my mother to splutter over her morning coffee. I've warned her that I'm closing something down again...

Sophie Walpole is a Portfolio Executive, BBC Online

A Page For Every Programme

Sophie Walpole Sophie Walpole — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:53:47 +0000

Programme support. It used to be so easy. If you wanted to know when a show was on, you reached for the Radio Times. If you wanted to follow it up afterwards, you sent in a stamped, self-addressed envelope. If you missed it... well... you missed it. Since the earliest days of bbc.co.uk, the BBC has responded to the new worlds of on-demand and interactivity by producing thousands of lovingly crafted programme-related sites offering anything from listings, games, clips and educational information to Listen Again, the iPlayer and full live Test The Nation-style interactivity.

These sites serve all sorts of different needs, but are not always serving the best interests of the user - a point eloquently made on Dadblog a while back. And while our programme offering was vast, it was neither comprehensive nor was it permanent. Try searching the web for information about BBC Two's The Verdict (which had a substantial web presence when broadcast) and all you will find is this press release.

A key plank of Tom Loosemore's bbc.co.uk 2.0 strategy was to ensure a base level of consistency, quality and permanence for all BBC programmes online. A single URL for every episode of every programme made for the BBC... forever. At the same time, we wanted to explore how to automate some of the process, capturing the metadata naturally produced in the production process and publish it dynamically so that users could find out the status of the programme at any point in its lifecycle. So /programmes was born.

As Tom Scott revealed, it launched last month in beta and you can expect significant changes in the coming months as we roll out new features and functionality. And as Martin Belam points out, it may be long overdue - but thanks to the talented technology team in Audio&Music Interactive, we have now made that crucial first step in a new direction...

Sophie Walpole is workstream leader for Automated Programme Support.