backstage.bbc.co.uk

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Ideas

Web-based Skinkers Feed Viewer

  • Chris Harris

The BBC makes use of numerous Skinkers 'desktop' applications, most notably to provide BBC Radio information to viewers.

We would like to make this more widely available to non-Windows users based on the feeds provided on the BBC site. We feel this is best served by making a browser-based viewer and alert system for the information. This would work cross-platform and remove the need to install software on machines (such as work PCs).

The work for this prototype has already been completed, and was launched on chrismoyles.co.uk to provide access to the Radio One feed, however it was removed at the request of the BBC.

I think it's an application that fits in well with the thinking behind backstage, and it's a real shame that we are not able to show our work.

Thanks,
Chris Harris.

  • 13 Jul 2005 03:42 PM

Comments  Post a comment

  • 1.
  • On 18 Jul 2005 01:01 PM,
  • Rich said:

I'd definitely like to be able to receive the BBC News Alerts on my Mac, but I doubt that Skinkers would 'open' the system they use for sending alerts to PC users.

This is probably more of an issue for Skinkers to produce a Mac version of their engine, rather than for the BBC.

Unless the Beeb wanted to develop an open alerting system that could be plugged into all sorts of things? Perhaps an RSS feed with either 1 story or no stories in it?

I also suspect (possibly incorrectly) that the use of the Skinkers system by the Beeb is part of government civil contingencies planning - it might be possible to use it to alert people to certain emergency situations? Or am I getting a bit overenthusiastic?

  • 2.
  • On 18 Jul 2005 01:57 PM,
  • Mike Davies said:

I agree. Cross platform/browser based technology is the way forward. For example, I work for a Local Authority and we have been ticked off by the Real Communications group due to countless employees downloading and installing Real Player to listen/watch news from the BBC site due to licensing restrictions. I guess some form of freely available browser plugin should be used such as Flash for delivering audio visual content...

  • 3.
  • On 22 Jul 2005 12:50 PM,
  • Garry Samett said:

Macromedia Shockwave (Director) could be used for AV content. A larger and less well distributed plug-in than Flash, but it has better support for streaming AV files than Flash does.

Depending on exactly what you're after we could probably do this with a combination of AJAX and Sitepal technology. The client application would have either a text display or sitepal speaking avatar, and a javascript app that runs a timed XMLHTTPRequest call to a web service (possible as simple as an RSS feed). This could either have constant info, or as mentioned by a previous poster a none or one story for an alert. The nice thing about using sitepal is that the user could hide the window, but would get audio alert when news comes in. Happy to try and knock up a demo. Sitepal is licensed per host web site and charged per stream - so the Beeb would have to pick up those costs unless a client side TTS was used.

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