The BBC’s Head of Audience Measurement (HAM?) Jo Hamilton has written a post on the BBC Internet Blog explaining the corporation’s move towards sharing data on iPlayer usage.

The numbers give new insights into how people use the service, who they are and which programmes are most popular.

The data is quite rich and shows us how many people watched via live simulcast versus on demand and even how many people watch iPlayer on each platform – PC, mobile or games console.

What the data shows is as many men as women use iPlayer, with the typical iPlayer user younger than the typical TV viewer or radio listener. As you might expect, the vast majority of people access it via computer, but mobile and games console usage is growing.

Question Time on 22nd Oct, which had received widespread press attention received 0.9m requests across 22nd-31st and had a clear “halo effect” with user requests going up for other TV programmes in mid-series such as Life, Merlin and Buzzcocks.  For radio, football coverage, The Chris Moyles Show and The News Quiz were among most popular titles.

It’s good to see the Beeb making this level of data available to the public although the choice in data format (MS PowerPoint) is perhaps slightly misguided as it prevents many from accessing the file. Also, a malleable data format such as a spreadsheet would perhaps allow others to create better visualisations of the figures. The fact that the slideshow wasn’t displayed in an embed format was also picked up in the comments thread.

Fear not peeps… I’ve uploaded the prezzo to GoogleDocs and you can view it below.

[If you cannot view the embedded clip above, click here to go to YouTube directly]

As well as the realtime translate (see above), Google’s also added a new feature to help English speakers pronounce and read non-roman languages like Chinese and Japanese.

Google’s also added text-to-speech support for English translations to Google Translate. Click the speaker icon and you’ll hear the translation. Watch the video below for Google’s explanation of the new features in Google Translate.

Have fun…

or as we say in Chinese…

I uncovered a bit of a find whilst exploring the virtual test-tube racks (or should that be Rax?) of Google Labs last night.

Launched back in June, Google’s City Tours enables (in theory) you to create your own itineraries for city breaks and plots out a schedule on a map together with a proposed route.

According to the official description:

“Making holiday planning as easy as searching the web. City Tours helps you identify points of interest and plan multi-day trips to most major cities. You just specify the location of your hotel and the length of your trip and City Tours will map out an itinerary for you.”

London City Tour

Google proposes a time allocation to each landmark - the exact number of minutes makes the tour less relaxing and slighty more stressful but hey-ho!

It would be useful to show more details about sights from Wikipedia and from image hosting sites like Flickr or Panoramio. Google works on landmark recognition, a project that associates images from the web with landmarks, and City Tours is an obvious application.

You are able to select how many days you wish to spread the tour across

I agree with the Google Operating System blog which points out that for now, City Tours doesn’t offer too many interesting features: it only lists popular sights and it suggests when you should visit them. You can edit the information about a place and you can add new sights, but the options are very limited.

If/when this feature is made available in mobile format will be the true indicator of the success of City Tours. In the meantime, have a play around for yourself here.

I came across the following article on Wired.com’s Epicenter blog:

‘World’s First’ Street Named After a Twitter Account: Wired.com's Epicenter blog

Twitterer Arjan El Fassed paid €100 to have a street in a Palestinan refugee camp named after his Twitter profile: “@arjanelfassed tweetstreet”.

Brainchild of the Dutch website Jouw Eigen Straatnam (which in English means ‘Your Own Street’, the scheme aims to allocate names to all 200 streets in the Askar camp raising money for the Palestinian Child Care Society (PCCS) to fund cultural and expressive after-school activities for the 1,000 children (aged under 12) currently living in the area.

The proceeds from the programme will go towards the completion and renovation of the crumbling youth centre, which is indispensable for the local youth that are born and live in poverty and social deprivation. Growing up with the backdrop of ongoing conflict, the children are subjected to high levels of anxiety and stress which impedes on their ability to develop both socially and emotionally. A proper youth centre with facilities for after school reception and activities will make the lives of the children in Askar more bearable.

36-year-old Arjan explained his motive for the unusual homage to social media:

“Twitter is a great place to connect people with issues. But it’s also good at bridging cultural gaps. For most people, it’s difficult to identify with life in a refugee camp, but by linking it to a global network that resonates with millions; I was aiming to promote a sense of connectedness.”

Well said…

(I’m considering a RaxRaxRax Road or a Lakhani Lane…)

To make a contribution to the project or to buy your own street name, visit the site here

I meet Murray Newlands at a tweetup. I am not sure what we were both doing there; I think we were both curious as to what a “tweetup” was. After that we just seem to run into each other and having established that he was not stalking me I agreed to interview for his affiliate blog. Other interesting stuff I have learned about Murray, he is an SEO wiz and a bit of a character, Google famous blogger and you will see what I mean, I wish him good luck with celebrity blogger. Somehow he has 33,000 Twitter followers too.

Murray took time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for this blog…

Why do you blog?

Blogging gives you the ability to engage with friends all around the world about your ideas. I have also made new friends share ideas with. I like writing and sharing my ideas with my readers

Why do you do interviews on your blog?

I love interviewing people on my blog; it provides great and interesting content for my blog. It is also a great way of reaching out to people I want to communicate with. Another great thing is that people promote their interviews on my blog with promotes my blog.

What do you put your success down to and what can other learn from you?

I know I make spelling mistakes and the odd grammatical error, some would say very odd, but I have been told that people love my ideas. Engaging in the blogging and online community with ideas that inspire and encourage though communication is more important that great spelling. Get to know other bloggers and interact with them would be one of my top tips for someone new to blogging and read Chris Brogan’s book about Trust Agents he has some good advice on this.

What is one thing not a lot of people know about you?

I once windsurfed to the Isle of White and back. I had RSI in my right wrist for 3 months afterwards, you can imagine the comments / jibes I got from my friends…

Please can you give me a Twitter tip?

Review the twitter profiles of your friends and competitors you will find interesting people there to engage with. I am @murraynewlands.

What can my readers do for you?
Share some link love with another blogger. Find out how you can help someone else and give them a hand.

Find Murray at Affiliate Heat Marketing or at MurrayNewlands.com.

I guess I never really thought about it before, but the BBC’s role as a public broadcaster means that it feels that its blog content is liable to the same strict guidelines that are imposed on its TV and radio channels.

This manifested itself by the temporarily freezing of comment submissions on its political blogs during today’s European Parliamentary elections in the UK:

The following section of the BBC’s 2009 European Election Broadcasting Guidelines focuses on all online content:

4.1 BBC Online

The same guidelines as those for programmes will apply to BBC Editorial content on all bbc.co.uk sites. These will apply to audio and video content as well as text content, e.g. blogs, podcasts and downloads.

With user generated content, we will not seek to achieve artificial balance by distorting the weight of opinion, but all sites prompting debate on the election will be actively hosted and properly moderated to encourage a wide range of views. Sites which do not usually engage in political issues should seek advice from the Chief Adviser, Politics, before doing so.

There is no certain solution to the problem of organised lobbying. However, all sites will be alert to the danger of distortion caused by organised campaigning and the bbc.co.uk escalation strategy will be activated immediately if necessary. For example, it may be necessary to put a board into premoderation or read-only mode.

There will be no online votes attempting to quantify support for a party, politician or policy issue during the election period.

Non news websites will direct users who want to discuss the election in forums, message boards and blog comments, to a handful of specific sites which will be premoderated or postmoderated within an hour of being published.

Journalists and moderators will have to make fine judgements between remarks that constitute robust debate and personal abuse. The general rule of thumb should be if we would not broadcast it on radio or TV, it should not be online. Filters for harm and offence and personal abuse will operate as usual, but they should not be relied on as a substitute for effective moderation.

BBC News Online and Regional sites will list links to all available party sites, provided that it does not give strong grounds for concern that this breaches the BBC harm and offence guidelines or the law e.g. defamation or incitement to racial hatred.

News Online will not link to the sites of individual candidates, unless there is a very strong editorial justification on news grounds and then only for a limited period (e.g. a big row because major player publishes policy on his/her website which contradicts manifesto on their party’s website).

Any speeches which are carried in full will be selected on news value, bearing in mind the need for balance between the parties.

Wow. That’s pretty tight, I’d say. Few could dispute that sites like Guardian.co.uk and Telegraph.co.uk are some of the Beeb’s biggest online rivals in the UK but as they have newspaper status, they are not bound by the same shackles as our Great British Broadcasting Corporation.

Surely one of the fundamental pillars of blogging is the empowerment of democracy (albeit moderated) through commenting?

What are your thoughts?

Love to hear ‘em….

Or just leave your X in the comments below.

The Telegraph today engaged in Twitter-nomics to set up reports for this Wednesday’s forthcoming UK Budget announcement from Chancellor Alistair Darrrrrrling (gotta love that name).

Following their Editor Will Lewis’ example of embracing Twitter, the Budget team created a TwitterFall for their website. A TwitterFall is a way of viewing the latest ‘tweets’ of upcoming trends and custom searches on Twitter. Updates fall from the top of the page in near-realtime.

So the theory is that anyone on Twitter talking about the Budget will appear on the Telegraph’s website.

However, as the recent Skittles debacle showed – automatically republishing Tweets based on keywords searches can be dangerous – particular when the naughty Twitter imps come out to play…

Whooops!

Visitors to the Telegraph’s Budget Page will see that the TwitterFall has swiftly been taken down now. Still, that hasn’t stopped The Guardian and FT from rubbing their hands with schadenfreude…

my favourite #budget mischief makers:

1. 
   natmandu Subliminal message: b u y a d i f f e r e n t n e w s p a p e r #budget 20 Apr 2009 from TweetDeck
2. 
   bloggerheads William Lewis smells of wee. Pass it on. #budget 20 Apr 2009 from web
3. 
   cripesonfriday Dear telegraph,I was shocked and appalled to read the words Fuck & cunt on your website today,all I wanted to do was read about the #budget 20 Apr 2009 from Power Twitter
4. 
   stavros79 Martin Clunes, Paul Daniels, Fred Dibnah and David Coulthard to be faces of new bank notes. #budget 20 Apr 2009 from TwitterFox
5. 
   nickpeters What a bunch of hate-filled excuses for journalists they are at The Telegraph – get proper jobs you wankers! #budget 20 Apr 2009 from TweetDeck
6. 
   gareth53 RT: @mattkitson: So all I have to do is say #budget and the horsedanglers, nutsack, cowburglar, titwrap, poohat, knockers Telegraph use it? 20 Apr 2009 from TwitterFox
7. 
   danpscott applauding the telegraph for suicidely having a twitterfall for anything with the #budget tag 20 Apr 2009 from TwitterFox

Event Wax - the Web based event organisation lubrication (their words, not mine) has announced today that it will be shutting down the service down completely on Thursday 16th July.

Whilst I signed up for Event Wax a few months back, I’m a keen Google Calendar user and have never really had any reason to stray from the Big G’s offering. That said, I have had brief flirtations with Meetup.com and have been known to use Facebook to organise private events.

Taking a closer look at Event wax, it was actually a really solid tool offering:

• Customisable, hosted web site for your event
• Alternatively, hook up the registration pages with your own site
• Versatile ticket types allowing free, limited, early bird, bulk discounted, and numerous other options
• Accept payments through your PayPal account
• Quick, searchable, sortable access to attendee details
• Keep track of activity through RSS feeds
• Comprehensive help, accessible externally, or within your admin area
• Dynamic mailing lists that can be targeted at attendees, or groups of attendees
• Export data as spreadsheets or XML
• Send out invites and collect RSVPs

In addition to these features, Event Wax were planning to provide users with:

• Customizable registration forms
• Automatic addition and updating of your event on Upcoming.org
• Multiple themes for your event site
• Full integration into your own web site using a powerful API
• The ability to use your own payment gateway (via the API), PayPal, NoChex, or Google Checkout
• Sending out of invoices and track payments

Ho-hum.

What event tools have you used?

1. EventBrite

Eventbrite is a San-Fran based provider of online event management and ticketing services. I like the way that Eventbrite makes it easy for anyone to organise an event of any type and size. The service is free if your event is free. If you sell tickets to your event, Eventbrite collects a small fee per ticket.I recently used EventBrite to secure my tickets for the forthcoming SocialMediaCamp London 09 event.

2. Meetup

Commoncraft has made a great video which describes Meetup much better than I ever could, so click here to chck it out. I will say however that I am a big fan of this website – particularly as it acts as an effective event search engine as well as a logistical tool for event organisers. The legendary London Bloggers Meetup events are organised via this platform.

3. Facebook events

Most people on Facebook have at some point or other either organised a meeting/party via the native Events application or have attended an event via Facebook. It’s great because it taps into the Facebook newsfeed, giving your event maximum visibility within your social network.

4. Twtvite

Set up by Felipe Coimbra, Twtvites is part of the Twtapps portfolio which really simplifies organising Tweet-ups via Twitter. The Shortditch Twit events successfully use this mechanism to draw a decent crowd.

5. Google Calendar

Google Calendar has always been my calendar of choice – even when I was locked into Outlook when I worked at various agencies. I love the way Google makes it really easy to embed and share calendars, making them easily accessible within Gmail, iGoogle, etc. The invitation distribution is very cool – particularly as it enable automatic integration with Google Maps.

What about you? Have you anymore tools which you’ve used to manage an event? If you think of any similar platform that’s worthy of a mention – drop me a comment below.

To celebrate Ogilvy’s 60th birthday, the Bold Ogilvy Company, together with Shaya Hansen and Yannis Petritsis recorded their very own Ballard For David*.

[*An Ad Man from A to V]

All I can say, is watch it now and then please help me out…

OK. Come out from behind the sofa. It’s over.

Surely, this has to be tongue-in-cheek, right? Right?

But even if that is the case, did it success in making you laugh? No? Me either.

So why (o’why, o’why, o’why, o’why)?!

Someone please explain… because I’m kinda freaked out by this video.

You were our David so bold and avid [pronounced Ay-vid]

An Ad Man from A to V…

For sixty years you’ve been our David

You’re still with us Dave Ogilvy

Whaaa? Yup I know they’re probably going for ironic naffness in an aren’t-we-clever kind of way, but this is Ogilvy – the brand-meisters. David Ogilvy’s concept of 360 Degree Brand Stewardship, which he defined as “a willingness to use the broadest array of tools and techniques to understand, develop and enhance the relationship between a consumer and a brand” clearly has fallen off the agenda in the rush for YouTube fame.

Ogilvy has officially become Wernham Hogg.

Is it a coincidence that Yannis Petritsis (the one who drove the lyrics of this car crash) is an anagram of Insanity Priests? Poor Dave. Mad Men, indeed.

The final screen cleverly (?) ends with the following quote from the Big Dave:

“The advertisers who believe in the power of jingles have never had to sell anything”

So…

Were these guys trying to make a video so bad, SO weird that it would help them understand the viral nature of the medium of the online clip (regardless of associated negative comments)? To what end? At what cost to their brand?

I can do tongue-in-cheek, but this is more a nose-in-arse/punch-in-face insult to one of the great founders of our industry.

The once legendary Ogilvy seems to be four letters short of a full alphabet.

W-X-Y-Z is the new S-H-I-T.

[apparently]

Inerested to hear your thoughts on this, as always.

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