February 29th, 2008
I have to applaud the BBC who have been pioneers of pushing new web media web services since the inception of www.bbcnc.org.uk (BBC Network Club) in 1994. And though a little rough around the edges sometimes, they always managed to achieve something special. They really thought about their output - which is what you want from a name as prestigious as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Then The iPlayer. And in one word, wow! Gone is the terrible terrible choice of RealPlayer, replaced with the much more robust and reliable Flash (not to mention the wide-spread support of the Flash-plugin). The design is fresh and very functional. The ajax is usful but not overcooked and most importantly of all - I can watch whatever I want, when I want. Truly the BBC embracing the way programs will be accessed in the future. They’ve seen that transmission is dead, and have taken a BIG step towards content on demand.
The New Homepage
I really want to hate the new homepage, and to be fair there’s lots of things to hate about it.
Stuff I hate
- It’s not exactly (erm, how do I say this nicely) very professional looking. Come on BBC, you’ve been pioneering new media for the last 12 years, and you’ve come up with this?! You’d hardly describe this as having finesse. There’s little attention to detail - it’s all rather big and somewhat over cooked.
- It’s fixed width - which in itself isn’t a bad thing. I’m not about to slate a website for being fixed width when 99% of the things I design are. But in this case it just feels lazy. The BBC must have a whole team of designers working on their flag-ship web page, and they couldn’t solve the problem of catering for different screen sizes while still having movable content? Come on, Netvibes managed to do it.
- The text size by default is big - which again isn’t a bad thing. But this feels like the design would have benefited from a smaller text, then allow users to increase the text size through some cookie-stored accessibility options. So what happens when you increase the text size now? Well, try it. One text size bigger is OK (just about) but two causes all the boxes to crash into each other.
- There’s a LOT of functionality they should (could) have included, but didn’t. I’m sure there’s some important internal wrangleings that went on here - after all the bbc want only their own content, but think of this situation :- There’s a flood, and the BBC are the first to report on it. But, they don’t have any decent pictures - so make a call for public photos. A user has some excellent photos on flickr (or facebook, or whatever) and has enabled his “BBC photo viewer” which pulls in his photos to the homepage. He then simply clicks the ’submit these photos to a story’ button, et volia! The BBC have the photos. And they’re more likely to get submissions to as the process is now much easier. It’s catering for everyone - It just seems that the BBC wanted a content rich, Web 2.0 homepage, but have missed a trick somewhere along the line.
- One (tiny) niggle I have is that the navigation on the top-right fixed contact block controls the colour of the whole page. Why? What has this content got do with the rest of the page
Well, I said I wanted to hate the new page, but it’s growing on me. Yes, it could have been better - but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. I understand some of the decisions they’ve made in relation to text size, functionality and overall design but I really thought they could have done something far better. These are the guys behind the superb iPlayer after all. I hope they can continue to build on this step in the right direction.
What would I have done?
Well, I had a quick play a while ago (when the beta was around) and did a fixed width and fluid version of the homepage. Well, at least started to. They’re not finnished, but you’re more than welcome to give them as sound a thrashing as I’ve given the official version.
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February 17th, 2008
Photo by Stagedoor
I like a trip to the cinema. The popcorn, the overpriced drinks, the sticky floor. But recently I’ve become a bit dishartend with the whole thing. I still like a good (or bad) film but something has been lacking in my cinema going experience.
That was until Katie took me to the Dome Cinema in Worthing. This place is what cinema’s should be (what they used to be) and a LOT more fun than your local 100 screen mega-max.
For a start there’s a friendly atmosphere, the staff are obviously enjoy their jobs (or at least act like they do). And the whole place just feels different - if cinemas could have the x-factor then this one would have it in spades.
Then there’s the bar - and the fact you can take your drinks in with you. A Big BIG plus from our point of view.
It just feels good to be in the building (no matter what film you’re watching) - like you’re having a real treat in an atmosphere of people who enjoy the same thing as you.
You know what? This sterile corporate shit really isn’t for me - we need more places like the Dome - it’s what makes Britain great!
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February 11th, 2008
ebuzzing is a new pay-to-blog service from France, just launched in the UK. Their man Dan dropped me an email asking me to give it a look see, so here’s what I thought of it.
As a rule, I really don’t like pay-to-blog (P2B) sites as they’re usually really restrictive on what you can write about. Why would you write a review on a product you don’t own or particularly care about? Selling your integrity to the man has never been high on my agenda with this site, but Dan insisted that ebuzzing was different…
They basically have two ways to feed the blogger content - Network and Direct.
Network is the regular fare I’ve come to expect from P2B sites - there’s a big list of products and services that people want you to blog about with a price they’re willing to pay for you to do so. I say big list with some trepidation, as currently the ebuzzing UK site only has a request to review their own site (cue this review). Dan assures me that the French network is much bigger and they’re working hard to bring across some of their French partners as well as some big British advertisers.
Direct is what makes ebuzzing somewhat different. When you sign up for an account and add in your blog you’re given a recommended price per article (or you can specify your own). This is based on several things (technorati rank, inward links, etc.) but it looks like it’s mainly based on your Google page rank.
As far as I understand the idea behind this is - Advertisers that have a particular product or service they wish blogged. They are then presented with a list of blogs that write about that sort of stuff (via a number of tags you specify). I actually really like this idea - it means (at least if it works like it says on the tin) that you’ll only get offered the sorts of stuff you’d normally blog about anyway. And, if they’ve got any brains, the advertisers will have read a bit of your blog and know that what they have to offer will be well received. That way - less selling out and a nice little earner for you - just for writing about the stuff you normally would anyway.
If this actually works remains to be seen - but at least ebuzzing have thought outside the box a little.
The only other thing I’d like to say about their service is their website. Good idea, slightly rickety website. It’s still a little rough around the edges (for instance, some of the Javascript popup alerts are still in French). The whole site needs some serious interaction re-design. It’s not really intuitive or easy to use. But I think once they’ve sorted that out they’ll have a potential killer service.
In summary - ebuzzing is a great idea that hinges on them getting some big blogs together with some decent advertisers. Do that, and they’re in the money.
This is a sponsored article
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February 7th, 2008
Since the beta launch last June the Glubble team have worked non-stop to create the 1.0 version. And if you detect a little touch of pride in my tone it’s because I think the new version is nothing short of an internet revolution.
When Ian Hayward contacted me last April about doing some freelance stuff for Glaxstar he gave me an impassioned speech about how he had a vision about protecting young kids on the web. Well, not only has he done that - but Glubble also makes it easy for parents to give their kids some really cool content.
So? What’s new?
Well, pretty much everything’s changed but the concept - So I’ll give you the top five coolest features.
- Usertabs - These little suckers make it so easy to log into your Glubble user account. Simply click your tab and (if you’re a helper, kids don’t need passwords) enter your password to unlock Firefox. Oh, and the ability to auto-disable the browser lock has been added to.
- Family Homepage - This is cool. You get your own family center where you can check out what your family’s been up to online and send each other little messages on your family wall.
- The Glubble Library - The new Glubble Add-on comes with a whole load of “content bubbles” or Glubbles for your kids. These are basically groups of links that have been checked by our experts and are certified safe and fun for kids. The ability to create your own Glubbles and share them with family and friends is coming soon.
- My Secret Homepage - Each child gets their own secret homepage containing all their most used content. They can also write on the family wall from here and pretty soon they’ll be other cool, customizable stuff they can do!
- Visual Favorites - When a child adds a page to their Favorites (bookmarks) Glubble automagically creates a thumbnail of that page and puts it in their Bookmarks Bar for easy access. I want this Add-on for Firefox myself! It’s so much easier to remember what a site is from a screen shot rather than just a title.
Try Glubble
If you’ve got young kids and you’d like to give Glubble Add-on for Firefox a go. Then get yourself a copy now. It’s free! (maybe that should have been the top feature) 
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