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The BBC redesign seems to be pushing ahead, and extending to other areas of the site (other than just the homepage which has been running the new version for a couple of weeks now).

Today I was pleasantly surprised when viewing a sports article; partly because it’s amusing to see how optimistic Kevin Keegan can be having finally won a game (or two), and partly because I liked the new-look article pages.

My first impression is how little has been changed from the old version – and I mean that in a positive way. I always found the old BBC site very easy to use, with the actual content being the centre of attention. The only exception perhaps being the left-hand navigation which I always found a little confusing. The new-look pages use very minor stylistic changes to make the navigation easier to use, without drastically changing how the site works.

This approach seems markedly different from the new-look homepage.

The general idea behind the homepage seems sound enough – let the user choose what should take precedence. Some of the features, however, seem to stray into the realm of the completely pointless (analogue clock top-right – I already have a clock on my PC thanks, and on my wrist, and on my phone; in fact I’m usually fairly aware of the time). In addition, some of the execution grates; the fact that clicking the Sport sub-heading momentarily makes the entire block float and then defloat before you are taken to the Sport page*.

*Update: They seem to have fixed this now – all credit to the guys at BBC! I reported this via the online feedback form (and I’m guessing so did quite a few others) and now it doesn’t try to drag the block by clicking on the headline.)

Interestingly having re-vistited the homepage I’m now at a loss to remember some of my previous issues with it!

I think overall the redesign is a success. The fact that it is not too far away from the old BBC website will keep a level of familiarity for regular users, and probably prevent alienating them (most people generally don’t like change!) The differences are generally well though-out and do seem to be an improvement on the previous site. And thankfully the BBC are moving away from the old embedded Real Player / Windows Media Player approach to the much more straightforward inline flash player for video playback.

It’s not all smooth-running though. I guess we all have teething problems with new projects occasionally - except at Neoco.

There are times in life when it’s important to be proficient at wasting time. Ten past five on a Friday afternoon, when one of your bosses is in Cuba and the other is in Rome is a prime example.  I’d put money on Cuba boss reading this, but finding it (mildly) amusing. I’d also put money on Rome boss not reading this – which is fortunate because he’d undoubtedly be more cross with the fact that I’m not doing anything.

Anyway… the point… I hear you asking.  The point is a website that you chance upon which seems to have something about it that is absolutely brilliant.  Facebook – it isn’t.  This is real life.  This is something out of the ordinary.  This is the plug.  I chanced upon issue #28 from March 2008.

http://theplug.net/28/menu.htm

If you’re sitting around on a Friday at ten past five, I recommend you read it.  Or indeed at any other time providing your boss is either: a) looking the other way or b) out of the office.

Wikipedia has just received a $3 million donation from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. If you haven’t heard of the Sloan Foundation, you can check it out on Wikipedia!

Wikipedia will receive the donation in three $1 million payments (one per year for 3 years). The money will mainly be used to increase the credibility of the content on Wikipedia via Flagged Revisions.  But itt will also be used for some offline promotion including a DVDs and/or books. And something called the “Wikipedia Academy” is also in the pipeline - it’s an initiative to teach targeted groups such as academics and senior citizens how to get involved with Wikipedia.

A lighter version of Reddit has been created by a young coder called Peteris Krumins.  Reddit River is “3 times as light (in size)” which makes it great for mobiles. It is also able to automatically discover mobile versions of stories posted on Reddit, which will effectively save you some precious MBs.

It is likely that Reddit will create their own mobile version within the next few weeks, but Peteris has been applauded for his efforts! Reddit River has been tried and tested, and it works as advertised - it’s really fast and surprisingly good at discovering mobile versions of stories.

I think it’s safe to say that it is now officially Facebook vs. everyone else when it comes to OpenSocial!

Yahoo has just announced it’s support for Google’s OpenSocial initiative, and it has now joined forces with MySpace and Google to form the non-profit OpenSocial Foundation. The idea behind the foundation is to “ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the web.”

Others who are also in on the foundation include: Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING. So, basically, out of all the social networks and web giants on the web, Facebook is the only one that’s out of the loop - for now.

In the OpenSocial camp there is, of course, a lot of hand shaking, back patting and congratulating. Yahoo says they believe “in supporting community-driven industry specifications and expects that OpenSocial will fuel innovation and make the web more relevant and more enjoyable to millions of users;” MySpace is “setting new industry specifications for social web application development,” while Google is reassuring us that “OpenSocial will be forever free and open..” All three companies will work on OpenSocial, everything will, of course, stay under the Creative Commons copyright license, and they’ve created an open source reference implementation called Shindig, available at incubator.apache.org/shindig/.

The official web site for the Foundation is opensocial.org, while the technical bits are still over at code.google.com/apis/opensocial/.

Since Motorola announced that they were seriously reconsidering the future of their mobile division, it was obvious that they were either going to sell it, or split it from the rest of the company.

They have in fact decided to split it in two, and the two new companies will be:

• Motorola Mobile Devices - which will handle manufacturing, design and sales of mobile handsets

• Broadband & Mobility Solutions - which will take care of wireless broadband, IP video, as well as voice and data communication solutions.

Greg Brown, Motorola’s CEO says: “Creating two industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored capital structures, and increased management focus–as well as more targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders.” Which basically means that their shareholders have pressured them into splitting because Motorola’s mobile division hasn’t really been doing well in the last couple of years.

 Following a consultation exercise that began last October, UK regulator Ofcom has given approval to the use of mobile phones on planes flying in the European airspace, and they have issued plans that will allow airlines to offer mobile services on UK-registered aircraft.

Individual airlines can now decide whether to offer the services. But, there will be other regulatory issues that they must overcome before the technology can be fully approved. For example, the European Aviation Safety Agency will need to approve any hardware that would be installed in aircrafts to ensure that it does not interfere with other flight systems.

However, if all goes to plan, passengers will be able to use their mobiles once their plane has reached an altitude of 3,000m or more.  Small mobile phone base stations, called pico cells, will be installed in aircraft, and will be switched on after take-off. These base stations will generate a bubble of coverage in and around the aircraft, and calls made via the pico cell will be routed to terrestrial networks via a satellite link. Across Europe, radio spectrum has already been set aside for the technology, but the services will stop working once aircraft leave European airspace.

To start with, only second generation networks will be offered but a growing interest would mean that third generation services would follow later.  The cost of making a mobile phone call from a plane will be higher than normal, but Ofcom said it will investigate and address any evidence of “excessive charges and abuses of competition” if prices were set unfairly by airlines and mobile networks.

According to WSJ, Adobe are going to develop Flash for the iPhone. And they’re not just going to use the existing Flash Lite - they’re going to develop a new version (or tweak the existing one) especially for the iPhone.

Adobe’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen had said: “We believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone…We have evaluated (the software developer tools) and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves.”

It seems Adobe’s on a roll. First, they signed a deal with Microsoft, who licensed Flash for Windows Mobile-sporting phones. Then, they posted fantastic financial results for the year. And now, they’re probably going to conquer this last, crucially significant, corner of the smartphone market.

Stable Media, LLC has teamed up with Wyndstorm to create riplounge - the upcoming virtual world for social networking. The beta version of which launched earlier this week.

The past few years has seen the launch of loads of virtual worlds. Some of the more recent have had a blatant approach to self-promotion, but most people would rather have an ad-supported virtual world, with digital banners and commercial-ridden video clips, than a downloadable tool that requires their credit-card number. Riplounge may not be the most obvious plug for advertising, but it will be another running experiment for finding the best way in which advertisers can leverage social networks that operate within the realms of a virtual world. And these types of experiments can only benefit the industry.

As a social network, riplounge has better-than-most privacy controls, profiles, avatars, various locations for you to visit such as yachts and night clubs, and certain social actions that you can take with other users on the site, such as flirting and hold hands -  all the things that avatars are supposed to do.

The various virtual locations will be used as multimedia channels for content distribution and advertising purposes. For instance, the night club could have a virtual DJ release a new song. It’s the interactive and custom options that spin off from such promotions that will provide value to the users on the other end of riplounge - so it will be really interesting to see what Sable Media plans to do towards this end.

Most likely as a result of being outclassed and outflanked by noted anti-Scientologist and self-proclaimed Wog Sean Kennedy, nine years later the Church of Scientology answered back with their own online video channel.

Recently, there was an interesting bit of collateral damage noted in the ongoing war between Scientology and the Internet, but Scientology’s war on the Internet has been raging since long before the battle plans of the RIAA and Lars Ulrich were even gleams in their eyes.

Rather than continue to carpet-bomb those with dissenting opinions with lawsuits and schemes of institutionalization, they have instead turned to propaganda. In a memo to the press, the Church of Scientology called attention to the video channel’s 82 videos containing almost 3 hours of content, providing “an overview of the basic beliefs and practices of the religion, as well as information on the many humanitarian programs sponsored by the Church–programs addressing drug abuse, illiteracy, human rights and disaster relief.”

The online channel has been launched without Tom Cruise, but none of their videos are as entertaining as the leaked Tom Cruise Scientology videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBZ_uAbxS0