I live in the USA, and I can’t access the BBC’s stream of John McCain’s acceptance speech… because “the media is unavailable in my territory”.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Sure, this is nothing new to those of us familiar with online media. But equally, one has to ask why the BBC doesn’t secure worldwide distribution for ‘general news’, esp like in this case where it’s probably recording the broadcast live from the convention… it’s BBC copyright end-to-end.

And of course, it’s just plain stupid that I can’t watch John McCain’s speech here in the US from a website that is even served from the US (BBC serves international users mainly from servers in New York). Crazy.

The BBC News Website has been trialing Apture for a few a weeks now - it’s been great to see one of my new projects find its way onto on of my old but significant projects.

The Beeb’s has been trialing Apture to provide background context for concepts and themes mentioned in it’s stories. If you want to see a great example of this, check out “Driving primates to the edge“. Tristan Harris, Apture’s co-founder and CEO, writes more about the trial on the company’s blog and the BBC also have a post about the trial on their Editor’s Blog too.

BTW, if you’re not seeing the Apture links on that primate story it may be because you need to switch to the UK version of the BBC News site (the BBC is only trialing Apture on the UK view of it’s site) . Click “UK version” in the BBC page’s left sidebar. If you return to the BBC story page, you should see a box called “BBC trial - in page links”. Click the “Turn on in-page links” button, and Apture’s iconic links should appear on the page.

Emerging results of the trial

Whilst I can’t reveal the exact numbers, the response to the trial has been fantastic - with the vast majority of feedback being overwhelmingly positive.

People like the ease of use and the way they can find out more about a given topic without the need to leave the story they are reading - and that’s exactly the use case Apture was designed to provide. Of course, if you do wish to view the content on it’s original page there is always the opportunity to click through from the Apture window.

However, as to be expected with any trial there has also been a number of people who have raised some concerns, mainly around the fact that the BBC isn’t directly linking to the sources and also the way in which JavaScript is used to create the hyperlinks.

I thought it might be useful to provide my own perspective on these two points - given my unique position of having worked on both projects. Of course, these are my views and not those of Apture nor the BBC.

#1: Not linking directly to other site

Jack Pickard’s comment about the BBC not linking directly to the sources is an interesting one, especially in the light of the BBC Trust’s mandate to the BBC that it must link to external sources more often.

For me, this comes down to appropriate use of the tools available to you. The purpose to Apture is to bring bite size chunks of pertinent content immediately to you, with the specific goal of providing explanation about the theme or concept of whatever you are reading. This helps readability and increases the user’s ability to engage in the story - especially where they may be unfamiliar with the subject matter.

The primate example above is a good one. As you read about the Bonobo chimp Apture gives you the opportunity to find out exactly what it is without the need to break your flow and move off site. To me, that’s a benefit and a good use of Apture.

However, where the journalist has made reference to Conservation of Nature’s 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, you can see they have linked directly to the website of the study. It’s not a few lines of background content but a whole new direction to take in one’s reading and so merit’s its own link. To me this seems like an example of best practice and, frankly, a great example what people are complaining the BBC are not doing.

It’s worth considering whether the BBC would have linked to the as many ‘background’ sources (such as the Bonobo monkey) without the Apture functionality. I don’t believe they would, and therefore the net outcome is little loss in outbound linking from stories to sites.

#2: The use of javascript to power Apture

On the BBC’s Editor’s blog, “pigsonthewing” complained:

I don’t see any in-line links - oh, wait, I have to allow javascript on your site.

I still don’t see any in-line links - oh, wait, I now have to turn on in-line links.

I still don’t see any in-line links. Oh wait, I now have to allow javascript *for an external site*

There have been a number of comments about this issue - but it has to be said mainly from ‘tech’ quarters rather than mainstream users.

I have to ask why ‘pigsonthewing’, and others, are surfing the internet without JavaScript turned on - and what kind of experience they are having on the 99.9% of sites that utilize JavaScript as part of their core functionality? (remember, most would consider Apture a secondary tier functionality - your use of the site degrades gracefully if you do not have JS switched on).

This is 2008. Back in the day there was a time when many of us geeks would turn JavaScript off due to concerns about security - however most would agree those days are gone and with browser security models what they are it is pretty safe to leave Javascript enabled - yes even for *external sites*! Gosh!

And perhaps more importantly, using the internet without JavaScript turned on is not something I think anyone would expect most ‘normal users’ to be doing.

Perhaps the only caveat to this is mobile phone browsers, however I would argue that from a usability perspective, rich functionality like Apture may not be appropriate on a small screen anyway - to this point when I created the BBC News PDA site, I stripped out the fact boxes and inline images for this reason.

This is not 2001 anymore, where we had to code for the fact that 20% of people had Javascript turned off or unavailable in their browser. According to the same source today 95% of people have JavaScript turned on. And that still includes all of the Javascript-less mobile and smartphone browsers that didn’t exist back in 2001 - the true %age for desktop browsers is going to be even higher.

It’s your right if you want to turn JavaScript off on your browser but I don’t think you can complain when sites no longer work for you. Your experience of the internet must be pretty broken and poor when every AJAX site breaks and you can not even expect basic site functionality to necessarily work.

The one other caveat for this is people who have a visual impairment, who sometimes use the Internet with JavaScript turned off. I speak from experience as I used to represent the BBC News website on the BBC Accessibility guidelines committee. However I understand that even today most screen readers and other assistive technologies have no problem with JavaScript enabled sites - and can easily interpret sites such as GMail for their user.

Conclusion and final thoughts

I take on board all of the points people have raised about Apture (as do the Apture team, I’m sure) - and there is definitely ways in which the service can and will be improved. But having worked for so many years on the BBC News Website, I’m delighted that the majority of people who gave feedback enjoyed the service and found it useful.

I believe the BBC will remove Apture at the end of the trial so that they can decide their next steps with the product. Of course I hope that the BBC will continue to work with Apture and roll out the service across the site.

In the meantime the product will of course continue to be iterated further, using as much of the feedback gained from the trial as possible (yes, even the points about JavaScript!).

If you would like to put Apture on your blog or site you can visit the Apture site for details of the free plugin. Apture is an angel-funded company and is currently seeking Series A investment.

(Disclosure: I am on the advisory board for Apture, and hold a small interest in the company. I worked for the BBC for six years, the majority of which was on the BBC News Website)

I have two submissions to SxSW 2009 and would be delighted if you would consider voting for them please:

> Taking Platforms to the Next Level

Companies are finally realizing that in order to find market success they must build their products as platforms and empower their technical audience to embrace and extend their core proposition at the edges. But what comes next? Where is this all heading? What does a platform ubiquitous internet look like? Where does this all lead to?

This is a panel with my ‘professional hat’ on. I want to bring together some visionaries in the platform space and brainstorm a little on what the future of the platform is. We’ll concentrate on use cases, new ways platforms can work and opportunities for doing cool new thing. This won’t be a circle jerk about who will be the leading vendors, etc… at this point that doesn’t matter so much.

> Puppets, Theatre and the Conflation of ’Successful’ with ‘Popular’

Loren Feldman used a puppet to ruin a social media consultant’s career. Every day we witness ego driven squabbles and arguments play out on our twitter streams (often carefully orchestrated between the participants via the back channels). Even Micheal Arrington once went on record as saying he’s in the “entertainment business”. How did our industry deteriorate into a glorified law of the school yard? In an era of economic downturn, what damage is this having upon the rest of us who simply want to build great products, change the world and (perhaps) retire a little early?

Based on a popular blog post I wrote recently of the same title, this will be a candid reflection on the subject of the ego-fueled industry we currently work in and the implications it has for those of us trying to do great things within it.

Although this is listed as a solo discussion (ok, talk!) it is my goal to outline some thoughts and then turn the format into an interactive exchange with the audience for the rest of the session.

—-
Apologies for the shameless plug on my blog, I realize that such requests soon become a little trite. However, this will be my first SxSW and I’m so stoked at the idea of presenting something!

Presdo, the online scheduling start-up, has is running a mashup competition around their API. Build something cool with it, win an iPhone 3G.

Sounds pretty good to me, so I was delighted to accept Presdo founder Eric Ly’s request to be a judge for the competition. Yes, that sadly means I can’t win one of those little boxes of Apple 3G goodness

If you have a cool idea for a calendaring-meets-your-favorite-web-app/API/social site/whatever application then you’ve got until July 18 2008. Good luck!

[via VentureBeat]

“Wow, that’s really really slick!”

That was my reaction when Tristan first showed me a demo of Apture (which just opened for signups, if you want to add it to your blog or website).

We’d met a few times previously and he’d been teasing with hints about the product he was working on - but refused to show me anything, or even give me any detail about what he and his fellow co-founders were really up to.

All I knew was that we shared a common interest in both grassroots and mainstream media, and importance of innovation given the nature of the content often being communicated. We’d spent several meetings discussing all sorts of interest stuff - from the way the media is often the last resort to keep governments and business in check, the need for informed society, through to the power of building products with a platform-orientated architecture.

Very much a meeting of minds - and so when I finally got to experience Apture, I was delighted that it too was at the intersection of so many of my favorite topics. I’m also proud to say that I am a member of Apture’s advisory board.

Welcome to Apture

For me, Apture is about bringing light-touch context and background to topics within the page you are looking at. In essence, it provides a simple framework to attach background context and ancillary content to subjects mentioned in your page - all without interrupting the flow of your reading and crucially, without leaving the page you looking at. In fact, you have already experienced Apture! (unless you are reading this in a feed reader, in which case check out the page on my blog)

When I saw the first demo of the product, what excited me the most was the implementation - which I think is slick and impressive. The thoughtful UI makes the product simple and intuitive to use, backed up by some pretty tight code that makes the seamless experience possible.

Elegantly handling off-site links and embeddable media

From my days working at the BBC News Website, I’ve seen first hand the importance of providing background information on the subjects discussed in a news story. Not everyone follows the news agenda as deeply as others, and providing a bit of context can really make the difference and ensure the reader is able to engage with the latest developments being written about.

I’d also seen examples of how the BBC had got some of it’s interface and style guidelines wrong - like not using hyperlinks inside body content and completely missing the early emergence of embeddable media (arguably pioneered by YouTube). I have to hold my hands up to these as much as anyone else at the Beeb as I was there at the time these things took off.

On both counts Apture solves these problems in an elegant way.

The concern around marking up body content with hyperlinks is about usability. When the user clicks on them she is taken to a new destination page mid-flow of her reading. Apture solves this concern by providing the essence of the page you want to link to in an easily manipulated floating window that the user can quickly digest and either get back to the copy or potentially elect to click through to a fuller page of content. The point is that the reader makes an informed decision whether to jump to a new page or continue reading. Apture also lets the reader position the window around the content so that they can interact with it later on when they are ready.

Another key part of this is the selection of the media you use to provide that background to your post. Apture helps you there too - by recommending relevant content from across numerous repositories on the internet - including Wikipedia, Flickr and IMDB. Finally, it reformats these pages so that the pertinent information is displayed clearly inside the Apture window that is associated with your subject.

Apture also provides a unique way to embed media, and can even handle certain types of media asset just by it noticing you are linking out to a photograph or a video in your piece.

Open for business

Having been in closed beta for some months, this week Apture was released to the public. Getting Apture on your site is really simple (just a line of javascript or the installation of a Wordpress Plugin) and of course it is totally free.

You can also take a tour of the product and see more demos of it in action.

UPDATE 08/08/08: I have submitted a panel for SxSW 2009 on this subject. If you enjoyed reading this post please consider voting for my panel! Thanks!

Loren Feldman may be hanging up the Shel Israel puppet but sadly we’re still a long way away from bringing the curtain down on the banal theater that’s consuming what the rest of us once proudly referred to as “our industry”.

And ‘theater’ is exactly what it is. With set pieces, stooges, rehearsals (backchannels) and whole troops of merry men.

The trouble with theater is that it’s fake; the lines spoken by the actors are chosen for effect and for entertainment - often exaggerated and rarely based on any real fact or merit.

Sadly the theater on display in “our industry” is often to intertwined with the ‘expert’ analysis we précis (tech blogs), the peer communication we read (twitter, friendfeed) and even from the pioneers of the products we love and use (ego CEO’s).

This is now occurring to an extent that is beyond avoidable. Not only that, but the farce is becoming ever more ridiculous, as the ante is upped and the perceived need to placate the gallery increased.

Not only do I personally find it frustrating and irritating, but it gets in the way of the business so many of us have sacrificed so much to participate in… To ship great product, to change the world and perhaps to earn a little coin to make our lives a happier place.

The ace or the joker?

The problem with “our industry” is that so many have conflated the term “successful” with the term “popular”.

One way of being popular is to put one’s self center-stage. One way of being successful is to put one’s head down and graft.

In related matters, Sofia and I enjoyed a delightful drive down to Palo Alto today in our recently purchased sports car. I can’t tell you how proud I am, at the age of 26, to have been able to pay for this piece of highly tuned German engineering upfront in cash. No loan, no hire. We found what we wanted and I wrote the check.

I’d be just as proud to tell you what I’ve produced and achieved during the relatively small number of consulting days I had to work to pay for it, such is the standing I’ve been (fairly quietly) able to achieve in my practice. Fortunately, for me at least, some sense of humility kicks in. I am not about to join the performance and begin a rendition.

In fact I now feel guilty even using it to illustrate the point. I certainly am not going to use it to puff an already inflated ego in a series of twitters or cerment a semi-faux persona I’ve carved out for myself that I must now live up to or otherwise feel inferior.

Here to make me laugh, too?

And so back to our old friend Loren Feldman, perhaps the only person in all of this who I must let off the hook without charge. As Loren so eloquently writes in his final tirade to the beleaguered Shel…

…Mike [Arrington] is busy taking on AP and the NY Times. Jason [Calacanis] is taking on Google. I’m taking on TV, do you think anyone of us have the time or even give a shit enough about you…[Shel Israel]

(emphasis mine)

Yes, for much of what you see from Loren is self-labeled, self-described entertainment. I just wish everyone else could decide too whether they’re striving to change the world, or simply striving for shits and giggles.

(photo by tgigreeny)

As you will know, I’ve been working with MySpace for a number of months on a number of initiatives to help them evolve into a far more open platform.

Following on from the launch of the developer platform and REST APIs, I’m really excited to announce that MySpace has joined the DataPortability Initiative. In addition MySpace has also announced it’s first implementation in this area, which will making it’s profile data available for those to consume on other websites. From the press release:

“MySpace … will be allowing users to dynamically share the content and data of their choosing including: (1) Publicly available basic profile information, (2) MySpace photos, (3) MySpaceTV videos, and (4) friend networks. Integration of the Data Availability project will roll to MySpace users and participating Websites in the coming weeks.”

MySpace’s full press release is on Alley Insider. DataPortability’s press release is here.

Whilst a number of high-profile launch partners have been announced (Yahoo!, eBay and Twitter), it’s worth point out that access to this project will be available to everyone who agrees to the T’s & C’s.

(UPDATE: A number of people are speculating that this is a biz-dev thing only for agreed partners and that it may not be using agreed standards, etc(eg here). I just want to be really clear: this is NOT A BIZ DEV DEAL, this is open to everyone. The launch partners are simple there to demonstrate the complete value at both ends and help MySpace test the implementation. And as mentioned in the press release, this is all using oAuth for authentication and will be working with DataPortability on standards.)

As a co-founder of the DataPortability Initiative I’m thrilled to be a part of this project and able to help guide it from the inside.

Caroline McCarthy of News.com has described this as “a huge deal” and of course I agree. In the media call she asked MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe whether Facebook would be able to participated and he responded:

“This project is open to any site out there that wants to work with us so we’re happy to work with Facebook if they want to join up with us on this project.”

This is not the same MySpace I took on as a client 6 months ago. Significant and exciting things are happening at MySpace and it’s great to be a part of it.

If you have comments or ideas and suggestions for things you want to see at MySpace, please let me know: bmetcalfe {at} myspace {dot} com

If you’re in LA cos you reside here, or down for the TechCrunch/PopSugar party tonight, you should definitely come out for the first Data Portability Meetup in LA:

Data Portability LA Meetup

April 11, 2008 7pm – 10pm

Blank Spaces,
5405 Wilshire Blvd,
Los Angeles,
California 90036

Upcoming.org - Google Map

Both myself and Chris Saad (founding members of the Data Portability Initiative) will be there, and we’re hoping representatives from a couple of major LA-based vendors will be in attendance too. Not to mention the grassroots tech scene as well.

Thanks to Crystal Williams, Michael Lambie and everyone else who have helped bring this together - you guys rock!

Please do add yourself to the Upcoming.org listing if you can make it!

Just a quick note to say that the MySpace Developer Platform, which went live to developers last month, is now live to ‘regular’ users too.

That means anyone can add an app to their MySpace profile or homepage.

Congrats to everyone in the team who’ve worked some looooooong hours to get this up. Well done everyone!

Marshall Kirkpatrick has a great overview of today’s announcement and the platform:

A few key points of differentiation between MySpace, other OpenSocial “containers” and Facebook are as follows:

• Apps on the Home page.
  I believe that one of the biggest reasons Facebook apps have such low user engagement numbers is because they can’t enter the key space of the user admin page. That’s where users live, not on their own public facing profile pages. MySpace is hoping to go so far as to create an “everyperson’s Netvibes/PageFlakes/MyYahoo” experience.
• Custom namespaces
  MySpace has a long list of custom namespaces that aren’t available in OpenSocial’s most basic structure. That’s the case with almost all OpenSocial implementations, we hear, and it will be interesting to see how real the promise of interoperability is.
• Synchronous communication
  It may not be XMPP but the MySpace app namespace ONLINE_FRIENDS appears to let app developers access the sub-list of a user’s friends who are actively online. Many social activities are best done in real time (like asking for money via Lending Club? maybe not) and we’ll be interested to see what apps make use of this option.
• OAuth support
  MySpace users are going to be happy to share their contacts and info from other applications off-site with apps on the MySpace platform because they’ll be able to do so securely. MySpace is about to become the biggest use-case of the oAuth authentication protocol, something many sites are scrambling to implement. Will app developers put this to use? We’ll see.

More on Read/WriteWeb.com and also on Mashable.

(Disclosure: I work with the MySpace Developer Platform team)

While I’m writing about new site launches, I also want to mention LearnHub, which went live to the public last week.

Last year, our good friends John and Malgosia Green returned from San Francisco to their native Toronto, Canada to realize their dream of establishing a social learning network.

What’s that, you might ask? Well, LearnHub describes itself as being “…for people who love learning and sharing knowledge with others”. So the social network element is about connecting people with mutual interests who want to shre knowledge and experience.

They already have a lot of experience in this area, having previously founded a learning management system site called Nuvvo (now defunct).

The site looks aesthetically stunning. The concept is great. I think they’re going to be very successful. Best of luck, guys!