So, as the title suggests, I shall be leaving London at the end of the month. Well, for a little bit anyway. I’ve been offered a 6 month attachment with BBC Northern Ireland as a Future Media Developer in Belfast, w00t!
What, you may ask, is a Future Media Developer? It’s basically a mix of what I currently do at BBC Switch as Client Side Developer and some project management. This is because BBC NI work with alot of independant digital agencies such as Front and Being Online, as oposed to undertaking any big projects inhouse end-to-end like we do at Switch.
Incidentally, my current job title also changed to ‘Web Developer’ about a month ago as no-one outside the BBC had a clue what the hell a CSD was.
However, BBC NI and BBC Switch are similar in alot of ways as they are both truly multi-platform content portals with daily content being transmitted across web, TV & radio, so I hope I can bring some of my experience working with Switch to NI.
Anyway, I’m throughly looking forward to getting stuck in and I guess I’ll know alot more about the job role, it’s challenges and it’s opportunites once I get settled.
On a personal note, it’ll be a bit of a wrench to leave London. To the outsider it might not always seem like it, but it’s a truly enchanting city once you are caught in it’s grasp, and it’s hard not to feel like you are taking a step down in pace & lifestyle by leaving, for however short a time period. However, the current plan is to return in 6 short months and I’ll not miss it’s price tag in that time.
I’m also incredibly excited to be moving ‘home’ for a while. I say ‘home’ because home is actually Armagh, but it’s only a mere hour away. One hour car journeys seem merely frivilous to me now. I lived in Belfast for four years while at Uni and loved every bit of it and I’m sure I will again, except this time I’ll not be living in some student pit, win!
So, this has been a pretty big week for us at BBC Switch. After 3 months of development we launched the revamped Switch portal. This is a big step up for us as it is now sitting on the new Forge directory. Forge supports dynamic, database-driven services rather than static page-based services and an infrastructure that includes new hardware, systems and updated technology. It is also powered on the PAL layer by PHP. All this is good news for us developers; and those maintaining and updating the portal. It is now much easier to discover our content across various platforms and should make for a much improved user experience for our teenage audience. The lead developer for this was the very talented Charlie Rogers.
A unique feature of this portal is that it has a dynamic “live” state. What this means is that the page will automatically broadcast our online content like The 5:19 Show during the week and simulcast BBC Two when BBC Switch content is being played out on Saturday afternoons (from roughly midday – it varies.)
BBC Switch revamped portal
It is very feed based and alot of the dynamic behaviour on the server side is made possible by manipulating the iPlayer and Programmes feeds based on our Switch branded content across BBC Two and Radio 1. On the client side, there’s quite a bit of lovely Glow to make the live transitions etc.
This week also marks the return of our TV zone with The 5:19 Show making the move from online to BBC Two. It’s just as random and funny but now with even better guests thanks to the lure of TV exposure. You can catch the show again on the The 5:19 Show programmes page.
We also have several new TV shows starting in the Saturday zone. We have a new comedy about starting university called Off The Hook, it’s very funny and is also available to watch online. This was piloted last year as Fresh as an online only series, and went down very well with the audience. It reminds me very much of those heady first few weeks at Uni and I’m also quite keen on the hot Irish girl featured. This is also being shown on BBC Three which should help promote the Switch brand to a wider audience.
Chartjackers is an exciting project using YouTube celebs to attempt to well.. hijack the charts and get a collaborative single to number one, using the YouTube community. These guys are very well know individually for their vlogging talents and have approx 35,000 subscribers each! It’ll be very interesting to see how their project pans out over the coming weeks.
And finally, tonight sees the launch of The Cut, the new soap series, initially played out online every weekday, followed by a weekly omnibus on BBC Two. As this has been an in-house production, I’ve seen the huge effort put in by the production team and have to say, having seen the first couple of episodes, it’s very slick indeed. Set and filmed with five miles of Switch HQ, it’s very fast paced and includes lots of new music from BBC Introducing. In this vein, if you are a young aspiring musician, you may also get your music featured in the show. We are also putting in a big effort online, offering a backstage insight via The Cut Blog and by offering users to take away an embeddable widget to stick on their third party spaces. This helps us push relevant content to users who want it and helps increase exposure to their friends.
At BBC Switch this Christmas we have launched a very special Chris Mass appeal, as you can see from the video, it’s a very worthy cause so if you know anyone named Chris, then please let them know so they can make a difference. Maybe.
You can keep up with the progress of Chris Mass Appeal every day at 5:19pm on The 5:19 Show.
October 25, 2008 at 10:06 pm · Filed under BBC Switch
This was a busy week for us at BBC Switch as we launched the spanking new redesign of the site. A lot of work has gone into this, both from ourselves and the guys at GT who provided consultancy for the marketing and design.
For those of you who don’t know, Switch is the BBC’s youth brand aimed at 12-17 year olds. We have an expansive portfolio across TV, radio and obviously online.
This marks a big step forward for BBC Switch as it’s almost a year to the day since we launched the first version of the site on 20th October 2007. The site has grown massively since then as we have expanded our offering on all platforms and added alot of user generated content as our identity has become established.
However, it became clear earlier this year that there were issues that needed to be addressed.
- The overall asthetic of the site needed a facelift.
- We needed to be able to push our different brands more cohesively across the board
- We had a vast resource of video content that is growing all the time and needed to be categorised and easily accessible.
- The site needed to adhere to the updated BBC Visual Language that is now bringing all BBC sites to a universal standard across bbc.co.uk
- We were using several different flash players across the site to push our video content. The new site now uses the BBC’s universal Embedded Media Player
- The BBC as a whole has a new and improved masthead so we had to move Switch from Barley to Barlesque.
These requirements have all been addressed and we’re all quite pleased with ourselves now the new site is live. However, having been involved at such close quaters with the site, I can’t always see the woods for the trees. So, please let me know your thoughts, what would you change?
