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BBC Backpedals On Linux Audience Figures
6031769 writes "After recently claiming that only 400 to 600 Linux users visit the BBC website, the BBC's Ashley Highfield has now admitted that they got their numbers wrong. The new estimate is between 36,600 and 97,600 according to his blog post. He stops short of describing how Auntie arrives at these two widely different sets of numbers and how their initial estimate is two orders of magnitude out."
If they didn't think it was worth there time to correct the numbers, they wouldn't have.
It could have been angry nerds protesting and visiting bbc.co.uk sites from their linux boxes to boost the market share stats. Or maybe a bunch of BBC stories have been posted to slashdot recently (e.g. this one).
Yeah, it went from a lot less than 1% to, less than 1%.
I still don't think that makes non Windows/MacOS support a priority for them. Do you?
According to this, the BBC signed an agreement with Micro$oft, er, ... the devil, ... back in September of 2006 to collaborate on, "search and navigation, distribution and 'content enablement'". Makes you go, "Hmmmmmmmmm?",...
So how do they count their visitors when only the ones who can view the content are the only ones that return?
How many Zune and Zen users have iTunes accounts? I wonder if they would claim less than 1% of the visitors to the iTunes store do not have an iPod so all other potential visitors is not important. The way I see it, is if iTunes provided DRM free music in several formats, they could instantly improve their marketshare by about 20%. Instead Amazon is picking up the other MP3 player market. Apple handed that part of the market to Amazon on a silver platter.
The BBC stats on Linux userbase is flawed for the same reason. Linux users don't return when the content is incompatible.
The truth shall set you free!
What cellphone(read: non-smartphone) has Flash?
Also, given the Linux-unfriendly nature of the BBC's site, how many Linux users either don't visit it purely because of the Linux-unfriendly nature of the site, or set their user-agent to look like Windows?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Yeah, it went from a lot less than 1% to, less than 1%.
... When the numbers started to approach 10%, people took notice. How things have changed, huh?
I'm reminded that in the early days of Firefox, people mouthed that same implicit argument. Too small a minority to redesign all those IE-only websites
Now, of course, the argument is that a business owner would be an idiot to write off 10% of their customer base. More important, the grander issues of healthy competition, accessibility, the destructive effects of monopoly power, etc. are brought to the forefront. Which is where they would have been if people weren't so focused on the numbers alone.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm guessing you are doing this using the win32 codec plugins for mplayer. Whilst quite a feasible way of getting it to work (one I use myself), it's not technically legit. It doesn't quite fit the Free/Open Source ideals and also does nothing to rid the world of DRM.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
By that logic, how is mac a priority for anyone either?
The Farewell Tour II
A state run media biased in a vague way in favor of the Government it's ran by?
No way!
BBC might be slanted but compared to CNN or Fox, the BBC is a goddamn breath of fresh air.
(Also, I don't care as long as they keep letting Jeremy Clarkson make fun of Wales and America.)
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I would assume that the BBC did not invent its own method of measuring web traffic, but uses some package or service. If this got the number of Linux users so drastically wrong, how many other site's estimates of Linux users incorrect too? Could a lot more people be using Linux than we are told?
The guy doesn't have a clue. He looks at Linux as BBC's nuisance. In reality, the nuisance to everyone, BBC included, is that BBC has apparently ignored openly published industry standards. Adhere to the simple and straight-forward standards rather than locking self in to working with MS, and you're automatically compatible with viewers on [b]any[/b] operating system. Do that and you don't even have to think about that obnoxious OS created by hacker nobodies.
Parent is insightful.
BBC sucks. They're sold out to Microsoft. First they offer content in their AIDS-ridden (DRM) format, and then this. Well, they can kiss my ass for all I care, I'm never going to visit their websites to help make their Linux statistics true.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
Don't be such a dick. It's attitudes like this that get the Linux community such a bad name. "We are clueless"? "Linux-unfriendly nature of the BBC's site"? How old are you?
He got it wrong, he was man enough to admit that he got it wrong. Why do you have to make such a big deal out of it?
And, sorry, but we have to agree that, statistically, it's still a tiny fraction of the user base. If I was developing a cross-platform application or service, commercial or otherwise, then I'd still plan on putting out the Windows version first, the Apple one second and the Linux one third.
Why? Because it just plain makes sense. If you need an explanation why then perhaps you're just not seeing the bigger picture as well as you think you are.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Now, of course, the argument is that a business owner would be an idiot to write off 10% of their customer base.
Which is made worse by the fact that the BBC receives pretty heavy funding from the tax payer. The BBC should be providing services that commercial entities don't. Every time they make a decision like this, they're just providing another reason why they should no longer exist. EastEnders was a pretty decent argument in itself.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
If they really want a cross-platform solution that doesn't rely on the goodwill of browser makers to support the standards, they ought to simply implement the site using Flash. Ehm no. Your suggestion to use Flash is about the worst thing they could do. It would greatly reduce the accessibility of the site, because not all browsers support Flash.
Let's see: Flash does not allow text-based browsers to access the site. Or search engines. Or WAP phones. Or text-reading browsers for the blind. And that has nothing to do with the goodwill of the browser makers.
The ONLY way to get a truly cross-platform site is to start by a plain text site, then add layers of gracefully degrading markup, or even gracefully degrading Javascript on top of it, making sure the site never depends on any additional layer of functionality on top of it, making sure only to use the standards that *are* properly supported.
And let's not forget that *any* web application depends on standards: TCP/IP for starters, then HTTP, then HTML. If the browser manufacturers fail to adhere to these standards and the sites break because of it, those manufacturers should get their act together and fix that. But going for some obscure third-party technology is hardly a solution, especially when that 'solution' causes more problems than it solves. As someone who also does professional web development, though, I think the BBC also should get their act together and hire some designers that *do* know how to make the site accessible regardless of browser or platform. It is possible to do that- the standards in vigor are actually quite well-designed. And fortunately, there are workarounds for most of the problems that certain browsers cause by not following those standards.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I think that media companies are going to fight until the bitter end to supress Linux users because so much of their DRM technology just doesn't work. Microsoft will play ball with DRM Media companies, Linux users are much more likely to fight.
Thing is that DRM is unworkable on any platform. It's especially pointless in the BBC case, since all the material in question has previously been broadcast (to all of the UK together with parts of Eire, France, Belgium and The Netherlands).
Yes you are correct. To support Linux, they should completely change the way they do business...I mean they can't have a logical reason for doing these complex negotiations, i mean it gets in the way of Linux, it must be stupid.
These are complex issues that we face, and pretending that they are simple to get rid off is not going to solve anything.
As a few people point out on the BBC site discussion, no one is asking the BBC to support Linux. What we are asking is that they don't lock us out by selecting a closed protocol, especially one from a company openly hostile to free software.
We're quite happy to organise our own support, thank you. All we ask is that the beeb picks a format where we can do so legally. I really don't see how they can justify any other course of action.
Do you?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Adhere to the simple and straightforward standards of HTML rather than locking yourself into working with some forum/wiki software, and you're automatically compatible with viewers on any browser ;D
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The government always moans about the BBC, whatever the current flavour of government. The Tories moaned, now Labour are moaning. The BBC is obviously doing their job reasonably well.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
The BBC is required, by it's charter, to have a significant proportion of its content produced by external providers.
These providers would charge vastly more for a lot of their product if the BBC was going to say "Hey, we're putting all your content on the web in non-protected forms.. okay?", especially those who want to sell their content to other broadcasters too. For content already in the BBC's vast archives the rules are even more difficult as we're talking contractual obligations sometimes going back pre-WW2.
At some point soon the BBC Trust (External to the BBC management structure, acting as overseers who-must-be-obeyed) would step in and point out this isn't getting value-for-money for the license fee payer, and it was cannibalising the sales of BBC DVDs and sales of BBC-owned content to foreign broadcaster which are then funnelled back into production. They would then slap the BBC silly and pull the service.
There's no way the BBC's going to be able to provide the same amount of content in the same quality and on demand without the DRM, what this now means to them continuing to develop this service isn't clear. The streaming version's one possibility, but that's unlikely to have the same video quality and won't have the on demand bit so may even be treated as 'broadcast'.
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Instead of doing this they engineered some bizarro Windows-only, IE-only, WMP-only solution consisting of server side sniffers, activex controls, 3rd party controls and proprietary JS & HTML which is not only horrifically complicated but doesn't even work properly from one Windows OS to the next, or one IE version to the next, or one WMP to the next. Use Vista? Screw you. Use XP with IE7? Screw you. Use XP with Firefox? Screw you.
Even DRM seems like a weak excuse for using WMP. Why not tie content to a TV licence by watermarking it? The user might have to register for the service and login but that's the only inconvenience. Afterwards let them do what they like with the content since its H264. It's not like the market for Eastenders episodes is massive anyway, and if by chance someone did abuse the service you can use the watermark to trace and prosecute them.
It seems like someone in the BBC is desperately trying to justify a very bad decision by marginalising the critics as unimportant. In reality the BBC ignored a great chance to develop a cross-platform solution and hopped in bed with Microsoft. Now they're wondering why nobody including the few people who got iPlayer to work are happy with piece of crap that produced.
I dunno... how about the Andrew Gilligan/David Kelly flap? Or the recent hoo-hah over phone-in lines. Hell, right now, BBC production staff can't even override a poll to choose the name of a kitten without heads having to roll. And that's just off the top of my head.
I don't see any way in which the commercial channels are accountable to me or any other member of the public. If I don't like some decision by ITV, the answer is going to be, "you're not an advertiser, so we don't care". At least the BBC are supposed to be accountable to the British public.
Which of course is why the debate is happening at all, as opposed to us just being told to get lost, which is what would happen if this was a commercial broadcaster.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
How on Earth can be my parent post "flamebait"? (Unless you work for the BBC. In that case, hope you enjoy your free laptop from Microsoft.)
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.