Connected Studio: the first pilots
The ideas wall at a recent Connected Studio event
As we enter the autumn and Connected Studio starts its next wave of Studio events, I'd like to bring you up to date with the first 10 concepts that have been selected to be developed into functional pilots. The following were all pitched at the first three Creative Studio events held earlier this year - HPSN, Weather & Travel and CBeebies.
Before we get into the detail I just want to state a little disclaimer that these all are working titles, and in various early stages of development. The concepts are not necessarily going to become future products and their pilots will be testing certain key unknowns - some of which will be going through user testing.
So without further ado I am pleased to announce the following:
Connected Studio One: Homepage, Search & Navigation
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Genius -
A one click personalised view of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ based on your browsing history. ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Genius provides users a service that allows personalisation the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Home page based upon their browsing history across multiple devices. By scanning the user's history of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ services, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Genius provides a personally defined home page with content dependant on the amount of time a user has visited different sections of bbc.co.uk offering a tailored page pertinent to every user.
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Now! -
'³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Now!' offers a dynamic updating element to the homepage to encourage the audience to discover new and latest content in real time.
A vision of a Homepage that is more dynamic, updating in real time so that users don't have to leave the Homepage to see new content. The longer users spend on the Homepage, the more they will 'discover' what it has to offer. The future of this would provide automated personalisation and surface content more relevant to the user without the user having to manually personalise.
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Pocket Page - ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ internal team led by Fiona Iglesias
The Pocket Page pilot will create a compact version of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ homepage - a Pocket Page.
Presented in a "block" that can be embedded on any third party webpage, the Pocket Page will be populated with ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ content chosen specifically to support the topic or theme of the host page.
Website owners will be able to configure Pocket Page to 'fit' their own site. They will be able to choose how the 'block' looks ie the number of results per slide and the number of slides as well as the type of content to be shown
³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Wander Wall -
The Wander Wall focuses on the user experience of a 4 way scroller, infinite scroll and hover to be used on the homepages of an extended programme such as Strictly Come Dancing or events like Sports Personality of the Year and Glastonbury.
Connected Studio Two: Weather & Travel
Weatherbot - partnering with ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ internal team
A personal forecast, on demand, by sending a tweet or direct message to @bbcweatherbot
Users can request a personal forecast for a particular time and place by sending a tweet to @bbcweatherbot. The user receives the forecast via a tweet
Weatherapp - &
Weather application giving real time geo-located reports based upon UK location or venue
A crowd sourced weather application showing a simple weather forecast, and real time geo-located weather reports from real users, so that you can find weather right now at any UK location or venue.
Connected Studio Three: CBeebies
"Are we there yet?" Journey App - &
Are we there yet?" A mobile application that delivers a contextually relevant and compelling CBeebies experience to be consumed during a car or train journey.
A collaborative mobile app for parents/carers that transforms car journeys into adventures made up of contextually relevant CBeebies songs, stories, games and radio content.
The Playguide - , ,
The Playguide is a way for grown-ups to understand how children use CBeebies, and help them tailor a child's development.
It enables them to learn about the child's use of CBeebies and what that means in terms of skills. By feeding back a child's activity to a grown-up in real time it provides a simple, clear and understandable summary. From this the parent is given a way of guiding the child's activity, shaping the experience without dictating it. It provides the opportunity to create playlists based upon likes, loves and development aims.
- Fettle Animation, Thought Den, We Are Thought Fox & ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Internal
A CMeebie is a digital CBeebies friend app that goes with you across all 4 screens and beyond....
Think of your CMeebie as a much-loved toy or invisible friend in the guise of a favourite CBeebies character. It's a companion guiding you to the website, finding the stuff you like and showing you new stuff that you might like and it's a friend that plays with you and sets you challenges via a mobile app.
Playroom - , Everyday is like Sundae & ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ internal team
Playroom is a place where children and their parents, can discover curate and create content around CBeebies brands that they love. Playroom offers the opportunity for children to add elements to an online 'Toy Box' from in and around the CBeebies sites in the form of bookmarking. The Playroom 'Toy Box' provided children a space they can save their favourite features of their CBeebies brands within their highly personalised space - a space that is shared by child and grown up, where voice recognition can be utilised by the parent to make them a greater part of the experience.
Scribbling on the Connected Studio ideas wall
As the first slate of pilots, I am very proud that these ten are now progressing towards piloting & testing. Not all will prove viable but we are confident a number of these will make it into ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Online within the next 6 months.
We have been blown away by the creative and technical skills that all of the attendees have shown to date and what can be achieved in such a short amount of time. I am particularly excited by the openness of a range of companiesÌýand individuals who have agreed to collaborate together to develop a joint concept- in many cases without ever meeting before the Studio. This desire and flexibility to combine skills and passions is a bonus - particularly when we have matched ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ staff with externals.
Finally, I am sure that a number of you reading this will think "I can do better than that", "that isn't innovative", "that won't work" or "I had that idea five years ago" which are all fair comments and are part of the challenge of innovation but I'd encourage you to sign up to future events to come and do better!
The studio is creative technologists, freelancers, editorial producers, technology start-ups, digital agencies, designers, coders, inventors; all from inside and outside the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳. See you there.
Adrian Woolard is Programme Lead, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Connected Studio
Comment number 1.
At 9th Oct 2012, Justin Staples wrote:Adrian, really looking forward to see how these pilots develop.. especially ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Genius as I see convergence in the device space as being somewhat inevitable now. Bit disappointed that these don't really seem to touch on interactivity which is another area I think is going to be big for the media industry going forward.
All in all, I think the Connected Studio concept is fantastic though - really a step in the right direction for proper development of the industry. Interestingly enough, I just came across a , the local broadcaster in South Africa - probably a bit of an unfair comparison but an interesting perspective nonetheless - especially for those who are ever-ready to complain about ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ initiatives!
Justin Staples
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Comment number 2.
At 10th Oct 2012, Emma Richards wrote:What a great initiative Adrian... wish I could be there to participate!
Emma
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Comment number 3.
At 10th Oct 2012, hammal baloch wrote:Very good effort
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Comment number 4.
At 11th Oct 2012, Mzwelindiwe wrote:Excellent selection for the pilots - I look forward to seeing the results and some new ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ products being launched soon.
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Comment number 5.
At 27th Oct 2012, Amit Sharma wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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