Slashdot Mirror
New BBC Sports Website Makes Heavy Use of RDF
New submitter whyloginwhysubscribe writes "A technical blog post describes how the BBC has rolled out the latest changes to its sports website in anticipation of the Summer Olympics in London. The innovative content management system extends the already available dynamic semantic publishing, which enables their journalists 'to spend more time creating great content and less time managing that content.' The post covers some of the technical and lots of the HCI / UI design decisions and is accompanied by a non-technical overview of the re-design."
They had better be careful. Apple is a very lawsuit-happy corporation.
Wish it was more common in writing to define an acronym before using it, especially one that doesn't appear in the article.
Did they include an erroneous apostrophe detector?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
the BBC has rolled out the latest changes to it's sports website
New submitter (and Unknown Lamer) could have learned how to use the apostrophe.
Unfortunately we have a bit of a backlog, and the year of the semantic web is current queued just behind the year of the linux desktop, so there may be a short delay.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Apparently they're talking about the Resource_Description_Framework.
So if such an incredible amount of effort went into getting the HCI/UI/UX right, then why does it look... awful, just awful? It's a shame really, for a site that's existed for so long.
It depends upon how "active" you want it to be. RDF is mostly for the back-end anyway.
As a developer heavily involved in building RDF/RDFA utilities, I can't begin to express just how annoying it is to see a Slashdot header pointing to a "technical blog post" that has absolutely no mention of the technology used: nothing about the libraries or server platforms used; nothing about the trade-offs with client desktop vs mobile vs legacy (IE7 / FF3.x) vs. ARIA (accessibility). If you search through the article, you find a link to another article that says they use Silverlight (WTF!?) to handle their contentEditable stuff, Java as their RDFa store, and PHP as their deployment strategy. It looks like an overpriced, incoherent mess that's already headed for legacy status.
If you're so smart, why aren't you naked?
The interesting part is behind a link buried deep inside this post. It's the dynamic semantic publishing engine, which was originally used on their World Cup 2010 site.
The BBC was one of the first websites to actually survive the Slashdot Effect (and report having done so), an achievement worthy of an award at the time. Their tech guys also invented the Dirac format (which they have yet to use for anything). The BBC multicasts at least some of their channels and provides the iPlayer for VoD-ing programs later (pity they don't support PPV for out-of-country, but it's a start).
As such, I'd say their tech guys have defined "forward" for the next decade for everyone else. It's good to see them continuing to experiment as well as adapt to the new medium. Research and development has pretty much died - where it ever existed - amongst many of the major television stations. Given their financial situation, I'm actually very impressed that they're putting money into technical innovation.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"Given their financial situation, I'm actually very impressed that they're putting money into technical innovation."
The BBC don't have a financial problem. They just tax everyone with a TV in the UK - even if you never watch their stuff. Other TV companies have to earn their money.
Phil.
"They just tax everyone with a TV in the UK - even if you never watch their stuff."
They tax everyone who watches live broadcast TV in the UK.
Yes, whilst a fair whack goes to the BBC, it also goes to looking after the broadcast infrastructure in the UK also. you might have noticed recent talk about using surplus from the digital switchover fund which came from the BBC's pool of money being used to fund broadband too.
So enough of the bollocks about having to pay for something you don't use, you do use it, if you watch UK broadcast TV live, you're getting benefit from the license fee. If you don't watch broadcast TV live, you have no need to pay the license fee. Chances are even if you pay for Sky, or Virgin and solely use that, you've watched shows that are at least in part funded by the license fee.
People stupidly believe the FUD that the license fee only pays for the actual BBC channels, but it doesn't - it pays for the content they produce, that's shown elsewhere, the broadcast network, subsidies for ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5, and also any number of projects related to media access in the UK.
The BBC are restricted in how well they can generate resources to compete- Sky gets more income than the BBC does from license fees, and whilst the BBC could compete, it's been artificially restricted from doing so at the behest of Murdoch due to his corrupt links with numerous high ranking government ministers.
BBC World was growing incredibly fast as a result of the quality and popularity of their content (i.e. Planet Earth), and the BBC was looking at producing set top boxes along with the likes of ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 for on demand TV well ahead of it's time (long before Apple TV, and Google TV etc.). These are examples of where, due to Sky/Virgin lobbying the BBC has been artificially held back. The worst part is, for people like you, who clearly detest the license fee, that it could've been reduced, or even abolished if the BBC was allowed to pursue these revenue streams. Effectively despite Sky receiving higher income than the BBC by quite a margin, the BBC was restricted because despite it's lower income, it was out competing Sky due to better innovating. Now, ministers have prevented it innovating, so that Sky could continue to make more money, without having to bother to innovate.
It's somewhat of a coup too, the BBC was established to be independent of government, but government does have some control over it's budget, and the Tories most recently have abused that to restrict the BBC's ability to outcompete the likes of Sky based on innovation. Both previously Labour and now the Tories know they can't use the BBC to push their agenda because it is at least editorially independent, so instead they use their control over it's budget to restrict it's ability to compete with Sky which, being controlled so heavily by Murdoch they can use to push their agenda - when you understand this context, you'll understand why Jeremy Hunt was so openly going to allow the full News International takeover of Sky despite the blatant evidence of corruption right until the point it became a truly untenable position to defend. He was willing to be so openly corrupt because he knew that if it succeeded that a couple of years Murdoch propaganda before the next election would make him and his party look like saints again regardless.
There's a reason Murdoch's press and it's biggest ally, The Daily Mail create this anti-BBC propaganda about how you're paying for Jonathan Ross' extortionate salary and so forth and harp on about how unfair the license fee is if you don't watch Eastenders ignoring everything else the license fee goes to in their articles. I have plenty of complaints about some areas of the BBC myself, but make no mistake it's still one of the best editorially independent news outlet in the world, still arguably the best producer of documentairies in the world, and most importantly - it's under attack by vested interests.
So by all means back the propaganda, pre
Agreed, and it now also pays for the World Service (which used to be paid via the Foreign Office), not to mention virtually all local and national radio, not to mention the BBC news service, all royalties owed due to people ordering content via iPlayer, their research division (the Olympics is due to be shown in Ultra-High Definition TV, something for which there is no meaningful off-the-shelf hardware to support, they're having to make it themselves), etc.
For the longest time, it also covered the Radiophonic Workshop and their Costume Department - two exceptionally high-prestige units killed due to previous budget cuts.
The BBC, cost per unit of produce, is incredibly cheap.
The other thing the critics "forget" is that the channels that work via advertising still cost them money. The advertisers don't donate cash out of goodwill to viewers, they take it out the pockets of the product manufacturers, who in turn take it out of your pockets by raising the price of their goods. So you are subsidizing ad-based television channels via an invisible tax but a tax nonetheless. And since a lot of companies are global, you're subsidizing those channels in countries you will never visit.
The BBC is at least honest about what they bill you and uses that money in the country in which it is collected. Fox, et al, are not and do not.
I'd rather have an honest bill and know what I'm getting for it than a dishonest one where the produce is given to someone else instead.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)