BBC Mobile has announced that it will be providing exclusive content to audiences as part of BBC Electric Proms 2009. You can check it out in the promo video below:
To do this, our Audio & Music team worked with Dizzee Rascal to provide his fans with the chance to play his samples and mash up his songs using a mobile soundboard. The application can be downloaded from the BBC Mobile site, or accessed by texting ‘player’ to 88111, and includes samples from some of his signature tunes.
The soundboard is live now to the majority of mobile phone owners, although not every handset can be supported. This application will join elements on the mobile site introduced especially for BBC Electric Proms including exclusive interview audio, photo galleries, wallpapers, set lists and Twitter updates during the gig.
These new features, in addition to the recently introduced radio network pages and the increased personalisation aspects to the BBC mobile homepage, are all intended to enable audiences to stay connected to the BBC wherever they are.
I spoke at Over The Air 2009 recently and have just uploaded my slides to share with the attendees and thought I’d share them with my readers too, in case you want to get a better view of what the BBC is up to on mobile and also, some of my personal predictions for what might happen in the mobile space.
Two highlights I wanted to pull out were my mini-analysis on what makes a good mobile app, which I’ve boiled down to:
Makes your life easier
Uses unique hardware capabilities on the device
Makes a better media experience on your device
Makes it FUN (aka GAMES)
Full details are in the slides and if you want to know more (since the talk isn’t on there), just get in touch.
The other part I wanted to highlight were my personal predictions around things that I think will unfold in the mobile space. They are:
Mobile take centre stage as the first computing device you turn to
Again, there’s more in the presentation but if you want to talk about any of these, or find out more, just get in touch.
I also gave a longer version of the talk at Ad-Tech London – part of London Digital Week. If you want to see the extended version (with more details and examples of good stuff in the industry), dive in here:
I’ve just finished talking to users of BBC Mobile live on Twitter (http://twitter.com/bbccouk)- what a neat experience – really great to have the direct conversation with them, even if some are alot more technically minded than I am. Thank goodness for my colleagues helping me with the tough tech questions!
It’s DEFINITELY the first time I’ve done something like this and my colleaugues think it’s a first for the BBC so, to presever this momentous occasion, here’s the transcript. It was all part of Mobile Day on the BBC Internet Blog I guess you could call it ‘One small Tweet, for Auntie…’
(Read from bottom up.)
Twittering Live
It’s been really good talking to all of you. Must sign off now. Thanks for participating – I think this has been a first! Jason less than 20 seconds agofrom web
Hi @thephazer You’re right it’s not all on the mobile site but we’re working on increasing the amount available and making it work1 minute agofrom web
Hi @rafeblandford Thanks for the feedback. Hard to know what’s going on without looking at your mobile.2 minutes agofrom web
Hi @fafeblandford Thanks for the feedback. Hard to know what’s going on without looking at your mobile.3 minutes agofrom web
To @nathanmassey We’re investigating… no firm plan yet.4 minutes agofrom web
Hi @catherinelucy Visual radio is a trial right now (a cool one, I think!) – so no firm decisions on where it will be available after trial10 minutes agofrom web
To @catherinelucy Best to check with TV Licencing on that…14 minutes agofrom web
Hi @codingmonkey Re HSDPA – It works on Vodafone or 3 if you’re on their networks.15 minutes agofrom web
Hi @arepeejee We don’t run the networks so best to talk to your network operator directly26 minutes agofrom web
Hi @johnsto We’re looking at what social features will give you best experience in conjunction with PC BBC iPlayer. It’s exciting!29 minutes agofrom web
Hi @thefalken Wifi gives a better experience and a free experience – that’s important to us so we optimise for that31 minutes agofrom web
Hi @thephazer Are you looking at the mobile specific site? Or the PC site on a mobile. News clips should work for you.32 minutes agofrom web
To @markbridge Live radio is on iPlayer on devices that support it and podcasts and are looking at other ways to make live audio available37 minutes agofrom web
to @stevelitchfield Best to get tech support for your router – we can’t offer tech support on routers because they’re in your home38 minutes agofrom web
Hi @liveJ We have basic minimum requirements for the devices we can put iPlayer on – if they meet those specs, then we’re considering them.40 minutes agofrom web
to @stevelitchfield We started w/ N95 because it has large reach. We’re always looking at many other devices-but they need to have wifi too43 minutes agofrom web
Talked to David Madden and OMA 2.0 is the most suitable right now and don’t forget we’re on iPhone and other platforms tooabout 1 hour agofrom web
We use standard web technologies for our streaming. We’re looking at whether we can make that work with the 3.0 iPhone softwareabout 1 hour agofrom web
Re iPlayer on other networks – its not currently supported on all networks but we’re working with all of them to get it there.about 1 hour agofrom web
Re mobile BBC iPlayer on Android, we see smartphones as key and want to be on as many as possible but I can’t comment on specific datesabout 1 hour agofrom web
Sorry for the delay. We had some technical gremlins.about 1 hour agofrom web
Hi everone. This is Jason DaPonte, Managing Editor of BBC Mobile here to answer your questions. #bbcmobiledayabout 1 hour agofrom web
BBC Internet Blog: BBC iPlayer application on Nokia N95, N85 8GB and E71: I can hardly believe.. http://bit.ly/NPnFXabout 2 hours agofrom twitterfeed
BBC Internet Blog: Getting mobile in the Blue Room: Up on the fourth floor of Broadcast Centre.. http://bit.ly/SgWKKabout 3 hours agofrom twitterfeed
This is a fun clip. Here’s Roland Allen in the BBC’s ‘Blue Room’: http://is.gd/YOHe (Gadgets ahoy!)about 3 hours agofrom web
BBC Internet Blog: Jason DaPonte answering your questions live at 4pm: We hope you’re enjoying.. http://bit.ly/fyCmeabout 4 hours agofrom twitterfeed
We’re doing a whole day on the BBC Internet Blog about BBC Mobile later this week. I’m not going to give it away too much here but the idea is to give you a glimpse into a ‘day in the life’ of the place where I work and, if you’re interested, will be featuring some stuff written by me.
I’m particularly excited because i’m going to be ‘Twittering live’ with users (possibly even you, gentle readers) and think this might be the first time a BBC staffer is doing this (not confirmed but I’ve been told this is the case).
Full details are on this link and you can also submit questions you want answered:
OK, so I probably shouldn’t be promoting books I haven’t actually read yet but wanted to put up a pointer to this one after reading a great excerpt last night. I’m excited to get the whole book – looks like a great read and what I read was full of good stats.
Sure the author is a guy with an agenda (heck, so am I) but he makes a very convincing case, not that mobile will replace all other media but that it is about to become a key part of the media ecosystem. Think about it – what’s the first device many of us look at when we wake up and the last one we look at when we go to bed?
I’m at MIPTV in Cannes and am incredibly impressed – almost shocked – at just how important many of the keynote speakers are saying mobile is. It’s amazing and great to hear some of the real big shots in the media carrying on about the space I’m working in – and it feels a little like 10 years ago when the industry really started taking the web seriously. So brace yourselves folks, I think this is yet another sign of alot of excitement to come.
The other good news was that while all the speeches I saw predicted a tough time ahead for TV, they predicted a bright future. Now, they would say that at a TV industry conference, wouldn’t they? But, there was some serious data and thought behind the predictions and again, mobile played a big role in their thinking.
Here’s what I took away from some of the keynotes:
TV will not die – network tv will still be effective for reaching large numbers quickly and cheaply. But, he predicted, it won’t have the same dominance. Sir Martin predicts the balance of advertising spend will redistribute itself like this: 20-25%, Newsapper 20-25%, Other 20-25% and New media around 25%. He predicted that an increase in mobile would make up a good part of the increasing spend in new media areas.
PC video and mobile content – especially mobile in B R I C s (his term for the Brazil, Russia, India and China markets) – would be especially important since this is where mobile can give cheap access to those who are not yet connected. He pointed out the significance of China Mobile having 450m subscribers out of a total 650m mobile subscriptions in China to emphasize this.
The ability for mobiles to become a distribution and consumption platform for TV/video content is what makes them important in combination and why it’s likely they’ll survive the tough times and come out stronger than before.
Jeffrey’s speech backed up Sir Martin’s predictions with some serious academic data that the Center for the Digital Future has been collecting for years.
His basic premise was that ‘all media survives.’ Media never get completely wiped out – they just change and often thier market dominance becomes smaller. He cited that radio was not wiped out by TV and (in America at least) is still a vibrant business, though not as huge as it once was. He predicted similar fates for music, film and newspapers (scarily he predicted there will only be 3 or 4 newspapers in America after the next few years).
TV is the exception, he said – “Rather than shrinking, television (video) will grow dramatically in importance.” People will watch TV on a small screen – including long form and series. TV is our constant companion and follows behaviour of people turning to their mobiles when they’re bored. This lines up with the way we’ve seen people using Mobile BBC iPlayer in my work. The myth that people will only watch tiny clips of short-form videos on phones disappears once you give them a means of easily accessing and consuming full length content. (Official/full post here.)
Niklas Savander from Nokia also echoed similar sentiments in his keynote; but this was mainly with the aim of promoting the long-talked-about Ovi store. Which sounded like a completely different Ovi to the one that Nokia were talking about here last year which was all about sharing media created on phones. Strange.
Video of Niklas:
I’ll be writing about some more highlights from the conference soon.
I read George Orwell’s 1984 when I was way too young and have carried its message with me – possibly too closely – through my career in technology and media. Working in the space, its far too easy to see how the tables could be turned, allowing for a society with pervasive surveillance and monitoring to arise. I already live in a country that’s covered with CCTV and find it a little too Big Brother like (and i’m not talking about the TV series here, folks).
In reading Halting State by Charles Stross, a similar – but less sinister and more dysfunctional – world view emerged.
Stross creates a world where technology has (largely) been developed with the best of intentions but sometimes its failures or misuses lead to disastrous consequences. In his near future, the characters wear glasses that automatically anticipate what their wearer needs and projects it for them – very cool – at first I couldn’t wait to sign up to get a pair.
But, what happens when these don’t function QUITE as you’d expect – at one point a policewoman wearing them has CopSpace (the all pervasive police information service that communicates with her glasses) crashes in the middle of a police manuever leaving her helpless. Do we want to be THAT dependent on our techology? The idea of CopSpace is sinister enough – but devices that make us dependent on it and that aren’t reliable make it seem truely scary, to me. And what of the character who’s fighting in a virtual world on his and ends up getting stabbed in the real world because he forgets the guy he’s fighting in the virtual world is standing only a few feet away in the real world?
One chapter is called “Systems Fail People Die” – and I think this illustrates perfectly what could go wrong in a world where we become overdependent on underperforming technology and systems.
The plot of Halting State revolves around a blur between the boundaries of reality, gaming and other media. Pervasive gaming – via the video glassses – is prevelant and characters are faced with deciphering when messages they get from their ‘games’ might be from authorities in the real world and not just characters. Initially, it sounds cool and entertaining – but as the characters find out that these systems could be using them as pawns in something far more sinister, it becomes creepier.
Please don’t read this as me being anti-technology – I’m not. Much of the technology that Stross describes could be wonderful and make our world a better place – but there’s a fine line between personal services and surveillance systems. Thanks to Phillip for suggesting this good read.
On the upside of this and back in the real world, I heard from Ken Brady (CEO of Genkii) today about the launch of Sparkle – the first live mobile touchpoint that allows users to communicate into virtual worlds while they’re on the go. Seems great to me – allowing users a pervasive connection to their virtual lives (ok, it’s only Second Life for now but that’s still damn cool) can only strengthen their relationship with the content and services there. From what I can see (still wishing for an iPhone here!) this is a great first step towards something I blogged about shortly after I met Ken in Korea last year.
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