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Round Up: Thursday 4 November 2010

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Nick Reynolds Nick Reynolds | 12:26 UK time, Thursday, 4 November 2010

Danielle Nagler has been about the launch of the ±«Óãtv ONE HD Channel. There's also a video going behind the scenes.

From Media Guardian: . Quote from Tony:

"As a nation, we need to decide that we are going to create an environment where every one of our citizens can get value from these technologies,"... "The ±«Óãtv should facilitate this, but it is an opportunity for these technologies to remind all our national institutions what they were trying to achieve in the first place."

Vicky Spengler is the latest :

"One project I am working on at the moment explores 'second screen' experiences, whereby a mobile, laptop or tablet device complements TV viewing by displaying information contextual to the programme and synchronised to the broadcast.

Observations of a Nerd takes the ±«Óãtv Earth Facebook page to task:

Nic Newman's report on mentioned in Erik Huggers blog post of a couple of week's ago is a good read. Quoted are several contributors to this blog including Tom Scott, James Hewines and Ian Hunter. From Ian:

"I've learnt that all products are essentially a triumvirate. There is the technical means of delivery, there is the stuff being delivered ... and then there is the UX design bit in the middle and each of the those has different constraints and methods of delivery and so on ...you have to be tolerant and make a big effort to understand how the world looks from each of those three angles"

There's also a fascinating "Masterclass Interview" with . Asked the question "When you can't do all the things you want - how do you prioritise?", his answer includes this:

"I think what I do instead is try to create building blocks that help power an unknown future. I focus more on the underlying pieces which I can then assemble flexibly in many ways later. Often the developers won't understand and say 'what is the use case'? I say 'trust me, you'll need this later'."

Nick Reynolds is Social Media Executive, ±«Óãtv Online


Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    Regarding the launch of ±«Óãtv HD, it's a real shame that Ms Nagler has reneged on her agreement to remove the unnecessary DOG from "quality" HD programming. This is one of the hottest topics on HD, and she has shown her complete contempt for license fee payers by imposing this, despite the near universal hatred of these things by viewers (who pay her substantial salary).

  • Comment number 2.

    GaryB007 - It is untrue to say that Danielle ever agreed to remove the DOG completely from ±«Óãtv HD. This is what she said in a blog post two years ago. It is also untrue and unfair to describe her as showing "contempt" for anyone.

    Your comment is both off topic and abusive. DOGs are off topic on this post. Any more comments of this ilk by you or anyone else will be removed.

    Thanks

  • Comment number 3.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 4.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 5.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 6.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 7.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 8.

    GaryB007 and others - clearly if I misunderstood your post then I apologise for that. However DOGs are off topic on this post and I made that very clear in my comment no 2.

    Please keep the conversation civil. Abuse of ±«Óãtv executives or harrassment of ±«Óãtv hosts is against the house rules.

    Thanks

  • Comment number 9.

    Hi Nick,
    I wouldn't like to get in trouble for harrasing the ±«Óãtv and add to the list of hidden posts but I was hoping this weeks roundup may have included updates or at least mentions of:

    Message board fixes and changes as you had hoped to update us on that in October.

    Progress with iPlayer Desktop v3.0.8 released as a beta and announced on Monday.

  • Comment number 10.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 11.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 12.

    John99 - if you wish to comment on either

    changes to message boards or

    the new version of the iPlayer desktop

    there are still blog posts open for you to do so.

    When there's significant things to share about either of these subjects this will either happen through a comment on those posts or a fresh post or update.

    The purpose of these regular round ups is not necessarily to continue conversations about subjects where there are still active posts. They are more about pointing to articles or conversations about interesting new or different subjects related to the ±«Óãtv's activities online.

    Hope that helps.

  • Comment number 13.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 14.

    If these round ups are more for information than for feedback, wouldn't it be better to disable comments here and direct those who want to give feedback to the individual boards or blogs instead. Most of what's here seems to get removed for OT, so this would seem to be a sensible compromise.

  • Comment number 15.

    GaryB007 - people are perfectly entitled to post comments here as long as they are about the subjects mentioned in the round up. Certain subjects (like for example DOGs) are long running subjects that have been exhaustively discussed elsewhere, which is part of the reason I rule them off topic. I have in my comment above provided links to places where you can discuss the subjects you are interested in. But this is not an "open" post.

    Thanks

  • Comment number 16.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 17.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 18.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 19.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 20.

    Nick:

    I understand people's confusion, but it seems as if you are trying to overly control the dialogue that is an essential part of the blogging experience. If not, you could just go back to standard push media offered elsewhere on the ±«Óãtv Website.

    Regarding the scope control, the Product Management article is also still open for comment, I believe, so why would that, by implication be allowed here?

    I was looking for some ±«Óãtv announcement, not on other public sources, about the intention to take ±«Óãtv iPlayer worldwide, but have found none. But I shall say no more about that, lest you moderate my comment away.

    And I won't comment any further here on the quality of ±«Óãtv iPlayer (production v3.07 and beta v3.08), but would have hoped that you considered that an important enough topic to keep us all informed of promised developments and desperately needed fixes, as you are the designated official host for these iPlayer blogs... and especially if it's to go global. This 'radio silence' is really quite worrying. I certainly would not get away with it with any of my clients.

    I hope I didn't break any rules, as I would appreciate a response.

    Regards

  • Comment number 21.

    Karin - thanks for your comment. Perhaps I could explain some of the context. In hosting this blog I have to sometimes make tricky judgements about how tough or how gentle I have to be about conversations which may be off topic. In the case of ±«Óãtv HD and DOGs the first comment on this post was both off topic and more importantly inaccurate and abusive. The HD DOGs conversation has been extensively and exaustively explored on both this blog and elsewhere, and my judgement was that a comment like this has to be dealt with quickly to prevent more off topic abuse, as do follow up comments in the same territory.

    As I explained in comment 12 this is not an open thread and I do expect people to stick to roughly the subjects covered in the post.

    There are still blog posts open about iPlayer where you can leave comments. Don't be worried by the fact that there have been no updates. I'm sure the iPlayer team are working very hard, as they always are to improve the iPlayer and when they have something to tell you I'm sure they will.

    I'll probably include some links about the iPlayer going international in my next round up. I've included some already in the ±«Óãtv on blogs box you can see on the right hand side of the blog. I've had no approach from anyone to write a blog post about this, but from my reading of the material already published I'm not sure there's a need for one. It's been known for some time that there will be an international iPlayer, what's appeared in the past week seems speculative, and I'm not aware of any new developments (which may just mean no one has told me - it's a bit busy round here what with one thing and another).

    I hope this comment helps.

  • Comment number 22.

    Nick:

    Thank you for your reply! At least I can refer to it as an example (sadly rare) of the ±«Óãtv responding to our posts and comments. There is so much frustration pouring out on the iPlayer message boards at the moment, in large part due to the dire condition of the product, but exacerbated by the 'radio silence' maintained by managers, developers, and often even operational and support personnel.

    The reason I was looking for an announcement on the latest--it does seem to come around every 9 months or so--plan to take iPlayer global, was to issue a warning that the product is simply not ready for that! Subjective concerns about design issues aside, it is riddled with serious BUGs!! I have personally spent many hours testing, debugging, and posting very specific problems, explanations, and even solutions. Unfortunately, these elicit no acknowledgment from the ±«Óãtv.

    I do believe that the iPlayer Development Team are working hard, probably 'to their capacity.' And therein lies the problem. From my on-going testing and in-depth examination of my log files, the developers do not seem to understand what the failures are, let alone how to resolve them. Unfortunately, official spokespeople like yourself may be receiving misinformation to 'spin' around the very serious problems, e.g. premature expiration is NOT due to an Adobe bug, and anyway 'A poor workman blames his tools.' The constant promotion of this idyllic view of iPlayer comes across as an affront to many loyal, long-suffering, licence-fee-paying users who feel dismissed.

    I am not sure where else to take my warnings, but if the ±«Óãtv Trust is serious about this latest effort to commercialise iPlayer, someone in senior management had better take a very close look at what we have been enduring for months--or face definite career-shortening consequences.

    Several of us message boarders have sacrificed many hours, frankly being abused by your employers, as front line technical support for a deteriorating product. We do so because we care. We do not wish to see the ±«Óãtv's well-earned reputation suffer as a result of any iPlayer fiasco.

    I have offered my services to come in, present my detailed findings, and explain what clearly is being missed by your developers, testers (if they exist), and team leads. None seem to understand the posts thus far and communication has been absent.

    Please can you personally bring this to the attention of the appropriate senior management, e.g. Daniel Danker. I know you can quickly check my extensive and often detailed comments (on perhaps more appropriate blogs) and posts, so I won't belabour re-posting URLs here.

    If iPlayer were a food, car, toy, or even a garment, it would have been recalled by now. V3 should not have gone production, not in its current state. Please look into this as soon as possible.

    Regards, Karin

Ìý

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