Well we are
astonished at the response to Window on Your World. We didn't really know what to expect. Maybe a few hundred in total, once all the pictures had been sent in? We don't have an accurate count now - the closest we can give you is from the Inbox count from our email. And it counts only the unopened emails - and we've opened several hundred. So going by THAT count, we're at more than 2,500. But many of THOSe contain multiple pictures that have been forwarded to us by the mobile phone photo people.
In short - we're well over three thousand and possibly four. Wow!
Later, here on the blog, and on the air, we'll tell you how you can begin to access the photos. We're at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the sheer scale of it all...whether to display them in categories or geographically. One thing is agreed, we will not be editing them. We'll aim to display ALL the photos we're sent - unless there are any rude ones. Those we will print off and put on the wall in the office, of course.
Below - I'm posting the shot I took at 5 last night. As you can see - it's a bit blurry. Which perfectly represents my view of the world at 5. I thought of taking a snap of only the microphone...but for the sake of demonstrating the time, I took a shot of the clock too. The figures through the glass are the production team. I don't know any of their names, naturally. Many of them were taking shots of me - and there is a flash in my shot as a result.
Once again - thank you. Looking through the photos is huge fun. Charlotte and I were rather distracted last night as we opened some at random.
As I speak there is a big discussion going on about how long all of this is going to take our web team. We think it will take several weeks. Eek!
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Ah Eddie - you have 3-4,000 now! But wait till they all come in! Bearing in mind how you impored EVERYONE to take part - I believe on average you have about 3 million listeners, so you could be expecting about another 2,996,000 still to arrive........not wishing to alarm you or anything. And I feel duty bound (as an IT Project Manager) to don my anorak for a second - I mean have you thought what all this means? Have you budgeted for extra disk space? Perhaps a new server or two? What about your network capacity? Not to mention the internal cost of all those web folk beavering away sorting and categorising etc. all those overworked post room boys and their extra hours.........this could literally bring the Beeb crashing down! Eek indeed!
Sorry about that, have taking my anorak off now..........well done Eddie, I thought it was fun!!!
Surely Flickr is the answer to how to display them all!
Someone has already created a flickr group:
but perhaps you could do something official on there.
Wonderful, Eddie! Mind you, was the blurryness down to a trip to the bar on the beach before the programme started? I think we should be told!
Might it be an idea to set up a flickr group for all the digital images?
Save your inbox from overloading...
Fantastic Eddie! What a pro! To present a live radio programme and simutaneously take a brilliantly composed shot of your view takes some beating.
We must have all wondered what it looks like from your seat, and now we know!
Well done!
Why don't you use your flickr account? I believe the site is designed for hosting photos.
You could at least have pointed your camera at The Elusive Lissa.
If this is how blurred Eddies world is can I advise him to visit his Optometrist. I'm happy to see him but it's a bit of a drive from PM to Bradford.
He is welcome to do an OB from my spare consulting room though :-)
Ian (4) Lissa very wisely was not in yesterday. TODAY however will be a different story. She will arrive shortly and may have to devote the rest of her working life to posting these photos somewhere...
Well, I applaud your participation but really Eddie, after all the advice we have listened to from the experts, I think you could have done a little better.
I can't wait to see Charlottes results
I think its rather touching that despite audience figures you thought so few of the famously eccentric great British radio 4 audience would respond.
@Mike Ives:
It is I who set up the Flickr group.
I think PM are reluctant to use Flickr to host these for copyright reasons (though you do have full Creative Commons control over your pics on Flickr) but if the Flickr PM user joins the group Im happy to pass over all admin controls and remove the other admins.
It's up to them of course, but they might have an even better idea (though it'd be tough to improve on the Flickr browsing system, tags and all).
Don't worry Fiona [1], I was not following my usual routine last night and could not take a photo. Nor could I even listen to PM.
So there's a coupla hundred kb saved.
When the Beeb comes crashing down around Eddie's ears, I shall deny any involvment.
J
And I said unto them, though shalt take photographs of thy world at five post meridian, they did and the world was good.
The photos that I have seen so far are really good, and it was a great idea to bring all the listeners together. Whose idea was it initially?
From this Eddie-centric article in 2005, PM had 3.7 million listeners. In 2006, Radio 4's audience stayed about the same so I would expect PM's audience to have held steady as well, and this year's Rajar says...I don't know, because the network has just crashed. Never mind.
Fiona (1)
Yesterday did wonder if we had brought down the whole bbc site when just before 5pm I couldn't access it at all - just kept giving me an error message though the rest of the world still seemed to be there. Thank goodness it did come back.
Eddie,
You can see everyone's face, the shot is well lit, everyone is facing the camera and no-one is doing the bunny ears! It's a great photo of your world at 5 pm.
Eddie, I can't believe you managed to compose a snap & present simultaneously, multi-tasking extraordinaire! I am really please you are planning to display all of the photos, and personally don't mind waiting until you can build a virutual gallery. I suspect the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ aren't allowed to use commercial sites like Flickr, which is a shame because they do all the work for us. I think the collage of people's lives will be fascinating however ordinary or wonderful 5pm yesterday was for them. I wonder if anyone was getting married or anything?!
Mike (2) I am a bit worried about you taking a picture while driving, please tell me you were the passenger?!
It just shows how powerful you are, Eddie. Don't let it go to your head....
Well said Joe !
I bet Chris Evans would have had problems :-)
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!! Drowning in photos. Our photo tool system means we can only upload 6 at a time.
Helen (10). Worry no more. I was indeed driving, but I had set up my camera on a tripod anchored firmly on the passenger seat. I set the camera to do time-lapse photographs (8 second exposures; one every minute or so) and just set it going before I left work.
Safe technique, but now way of guaranteeing a photo at exactly 5pm, hence mine is a little late (5:01 according to my car's clock).
Thanks for your concern ;)
Mike (12) sooo clever, & so prepared; I was scrabbling about for a memory card at 5.55 & had to nick one from the sat nav to take a very dull picture of desk! I think the collective effect of all our efforts will be quite poignant though.
5:55, or 4:55?
To the people suggesting Eddie sets up a Flickr site - he already has one. You can see all of the photos and postcards to date on it. Click on the pics of the office staff at the top right hand side.
Exactly my point Anne P!
And Judith - at least you can live guilt free, unlike the rest of us lol :0)
Eddie:
I see you wiped the mike clean. ;-)
So, what are you doing for Christmas, PM Team? Are you going to draw lots to see who has to stay on WotW duty?
Belinda thanks for that link. Sadly I could only get the first page before ME crashed on me, and when I tried again it crashed as soon as I brought the page up. Maybe it's some sort of Jeremy Paxman sabotage.
I really wanted to take part in this, such a fantastic idea, but I was listening to PM in the kitchen and what sort of a picture would that make?
S
Lissa, may I suggest a tool like jUploadr ( )? It's free (and Free), and uses Java so it can run on Windows, Linux or Mac.
The more technical (and Linux-running) froggers may also like flickrfs ( ), which allows you to treat your Flickr account as a directory.