Now that the Beeb official owns the @bbc account on Twitter, what should it do with it? Your ideas please.
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Twitterfall makes it onto Telegraph newsroom screens
Twitterfall, an app that lets you monitor new updates to Twitter on certain #tags or search terms, has been a fixture on the big screens in the Telegraph’s integrated newsroom for the last two weeks, according to this pic from Telegraph.co.uk editor Marcus Warren (courtesy of TwitPic):
The Twitterfall of #twitterfall is the first non-mainstream media news source to appear on the screens, Warren said in a Tweet, adding that it’s the same size as the projection of Telegraph.co.uk on the screens and given more space than Sky, BBC and CNN on the wall.
BBC could share more technology with S4C/Trinity Mirror in Wales, says Trust chairman
In a speech given to Cardiff’s Business Club last night, BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons added more weight to suggest more regional news partnerships between the BBC and competitors are in the pipeline:
- More on partnerships: work is ongoing on partnerships in regional media with ITV; and between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide.
- Could BBC enter into an IT-sharing agreement with S4C and ITV in Wales to reduce operational costs?
- Revamp of Broadcasting House in Wales could benefit local media with technology sharing arrangements.
- “Perhaps even Trinty Mirror could have a role to play too [in partnering the BBC for regional news provision], given their journalistic presence in Wales and their significant online operation.”
- And, just in case you doubted it: “The BBC local video project is dead. We have told BBC news that it must come up with a different solution.”
Here’s his comments as a Wordle:
But, a note of caution from Lyons on partnerships:
“What we’re not interested in are proposals that simply transfer value from the BBC to other players in the market (…) Let’s make sure that we don’t inadvertently turn the BBC into the Lloyds Bank of the media world.”
Links for ICO’s call for senior public officials’ (including BBC) salary bands to be publicly available
“Senior public officials salary bands should be publicly available as a matter of routine, according to new Guidance published today by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO)”, the ICO said, in a release today.
“Salary details, bonuses and performance related pay should be in the public domain to the nearest £5,000 band when there is a legitimate public interest. Disclosing exact salaries will only be required in exceptional circumstances,” the ICO said.
The Independent reported the ICO has said that “highly paid executives and presenters working for the BBC, and bosses of the newly nationalised banks, must disclose details of salaries and bonuses.
And here is where you can find that information:
Download the PDF of the release here: http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/pressreleases/2009/salaries_guidance_final230209.pdf
Download the PDF of the Guidance here:http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/freedom_of_information/practical_application/salaries_v1.pdf
Two examples concerning the BBC from the Guidance:
- “The Commissioner determined that the BBC should disclose the salary band of the Controller of Continuing Drama, but not his exact salary, which was individually negotiated. He found that the legitimate public interest outweighed the intrusion of disclosing the salary band but not the additional intrusion of disclosing an exact salary. (ICO decision notice FS50070465, March 2008)”
- “The Commissioner decided that BBC Northern Ireland did not have to release the fee paid to a presenter. The fee had been decided in confidential negotiations in accordance with the standard practice in the industry, and was therefore properly treated differently from the salary of a senior employee. (ICO decision notice FS50067416, January 2008).”
BBC News’ ‘Most Popular Now’ traffic map
Hadn’t come across this before, so thought I’d share this map form the BBC showing the most popular news stories on the BBC News website:
The map can be filtered by continent (and the UK) to show the top 10 ‘most popular’ and ‘most emailed’ BBC News articles.
There’s also a speedometer indicating how traffic to the site is compared to ‘normal’ levels = compared with the recent traffic average for that time of day calculated from the BBC News Live Stats system.
At time of writing (12:38pm GMT) it shows us that ‘Goody’s fiance’s curfew relaxed’ is the most popular worldwide story, but that worldwide traffic to the site is 35 per cent below normal.
Plus you can see how the number of stories viewed on BBC News online yesterday dropped at peak time when the site went down.
Jason DaPonte: BeebCamp and new ways of working at the BBC
Summing up the BBC’s ‘unconference’ event for its digital staff, BeebCamp, Jason DaPonte imagines a new way for the BBC to work:
“Each year you pay your license fee to the BBC in exchange for programming that you own and control the destiny of. YOU decide what gets made because YOU decide which ideas, programmes, themes, seasons, etc you want to invest in. This could be done via an online marketplace…” writes DaPonte.
BBC trials News Radar project – how to see the ‘whole’ BBC news site
Interesting first project prototype from the BBC’s journalism labs – the BBC News Radar: a way to track all BBC news stories as they are published/update online.
The tagline? “Monitoring low-flying news since 1998”
As Jake MacMullin points out in a blog post introducing the radar:
“One reason you may not be aware of how frequently we publish new content is that until now there has been no one place you can go to see all of the stories we publish on the news site. You can always monitor the front page or subscribe to RSS feeds of each of the various indexes you might be interested in – but you’ll only see a small sub-set of all of the stories we publish.”
Updates to stories already published are tagged in blue and in a Twitter timeline/Tweme style the automatically updating Radar page shows how long ago the new copy was published:
An RSS feed would be nice – we’ll leave that as feedback, it’s in beta after all – but it’s a great way of seeing just how much news is being published in real-time.
Paul Bradshaw, Twitter and the art of predicting the interview
Prior to his appearance to talk about Twitter on BBC West Midlands’ breakfast show this morning, Birmingham City journalism lecturer and Online Journalism Blog blogger Paul Bradshaw put out a call on the service to see if he and his followers couldn’t predict what questions he’d be asked.
[You can listen to the audio of the interview at this link until February 25 2009 – Paul’s interview comes in around the 2 hours 15 mins mark]
Here’s the full audio of the interview courtesy of BBC West Midlands and the Phil Upton Breakfast Show:
150 responses later and the #bbcwm tag became the seventh most popular search term on Twitter. Here’s the predicted interview (full names of Twitterers and responses can be seen on Bradshaw’s blog):
- Isn’t it a waste of time?
- What’s Twitter all about?
- What famous people are on it?
- Have there been any catfights on it?
- How do you ever get any work done?
- What advice can you give me on using Twitter?
- Can’t these people make real friends?
- Why would you want strangers knowing what you do?
And, of the five questions presenter Phil Upton got to ask, numbers 1, 2, 3 and 5. A bonus question – also predicted by Bradshaw’s followers – included ‘what’s the best tweet/tweeter you’ve seen?’. Aptly, Bradshaw used responses that had been sent by Tweeters to illustrate his answers.
Upton, who tweets at @flupton, had been following the responses to Bradshaw’s shoutout and may have used them as free research. Even if he didn’t base his questions on the #bbcwm replies there’s a strange ‘self-fulfilling interview’ prophecy going on here, with questions answered before the interview has even taken place…
Bitter wallet: BBC offers £75 for ‘accidental’ use of Flickr image
A Flickr image of Birmingham’s city skyline was mistakenly used as a backdrop for a BBC news bulletin, the corporation has said, offering £75 usage fee to the photographer.
BBC Trustees’ expenses: all online for your enjoyment (links and summary)
Now this is an interesting media release to get in your inbox of a morning: a summary report and the full expenses for the BBC trustees 1 April-30 September 2008.
“In line with its commitment to transparency and openness, the BBC Trust decided in April 2008 to publish Trustees’ individual expenses with effect from April 2007. These are published on a six monthly basis,” the release said.
So, here you go: the expenses, in text summary form for the period April 1 to September 30 2008 here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/about/expenses/summary_apr_sept_2008.txt
Or full report in text here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/about/expenses/full_report_apr_sept_2008.txt
Or visit here for the PDFs (much easier to read): http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/about/bbc_trust_members/expenses.html
The full report lets you details a bit more specifically. During April – September 2008 report for example, Sir Michael Lyons had meetings at the Cinnamon Club, the Dorchester and the Wolseley, for example. Personal details, e.g names of hotels stayed in, are removed.
The interesting parts in digestable form:
- Lots of BBC prom boxes for ‘external opinion formers’ = £3836.35
- Wimbledon Tennis Championship – Sir Michael Lyons and Diane Coyle hosted an event for opinion formers = £9,803.99
- The Trustee expenses amounts below include Trustee business entertainment (external and internal) / Subsistence / Mileage / Accommodation / Travel (other) / Travel –
Driver/ Flights / Cars / Rail / Other (see links above for notes on categories).
- Chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, £35,126.82*
- Vice Chair, Chitra Bharucha, £8,754.01
- Trust Member for Northern Ireland, Rotha Johnston, £7,154.62
- Trust Member for Scotland, Jeremy Peat, £15,050.74
- Trust Member for England, Alison Hastings, £8,341.96
- Trust Member for Wales, Janet Lewis-Jones, £9,872.85
- Trust Member, Patricia Hodgson, £1,546.88
- Trust member, David Liddiment, £856.02
- Trust Member, Mehmuda Mian, £448.62
- Trust Member, Dermot Gleeson, £2,860.78
- Trust Member, Richard Tait, £1,941.07
- Trust Member, Diane Coyle, £1550.59
- TOTAL = £93,504.96
* “Sir Michael Lyons’ expenses total includes half of the annual £25,000 cost for his access to a BBC car and driver. These costs are already reported in the BBC Annual Report and Statement of Accounts and is included here for completeness,” the report says.