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August 21, 2004
EuroFoo - Day - 1 - Afternoon
Afternoon sessions start in a minute. After a sandwich lunch and "socializing" (which, at EuroFoo means sitting in groups with an open laptop),
I've picked a session Paula Ledieu on the "BBC creative archive". The creative archive is a public service initiative to open up the video and audio archive of the BBC. The most difficult aspect of the whole thing is the "rights" question. The BBC does not actually own all the content it wants to open up. It only owns the storage tape, the shelf space etc. There are mechanisms in place to rebroadcast the stuff on TV or radio but things are not so easy when it comes to online distribution. The ultimate goal is not only allow viewing of the archived content but also that people can use it for their own ventures. But this represents a total shift in how the BBC (or any "broadcasting" corporation) thinks of its own role. The first piece of content is planned for release in October. Although Paula wouldn't say what that would be. She did however state that DRM will no be used to protect the content and that the BBC is working closely with Creative Commons.. A very interesting talk on the current state and future of broadcasting.
Nest session is "Opening up programme information for people to build stuff with". A talk by Matt Biddulph and Tom Coates on how the BBC is providing a way of accessing information about BBC radio programming (specifically Radio 3). The site has URLs that point to a specific programme and not to when it was broadcast (because of problems with repeats). The plan (not yet actually decided) is to extend this to all radio stations and also TV stations. Another goal is to build a repository of programming information around the actual programmes that can then be accessed. One of the visions is to provide an API (like Amazon) to the data. The problem being that the BBC does not have unique identifiers (like the book ISBN) for their radio programmes. In order to get participation from the audience they are planning on publishing an RDF file together with each HTML file. Then third parties can use the RDF file to build services around the BBC data. Other discussions currently ongoing are centering around providing RSS or iCal files for the data as well. However the BBC has to be careful about not actually harming already existing commercial ventures in these areas. The BBC is publicly funded by the UK government (via the license fees). Matt Biddulph showed a little offline Python programme that displays a 3 week RDF "mesh" of Radio 3 programmes (he's also working on a version for Series 60). I asked about a wider perspective (i.e. a European wide RDF model for broadcasting).
The past 2 BBC sessions were worth the drive here alone. Cool stuff.
Tim O'Reilly is up next talking about the "O'Reilly radar". A talk that he gave at OSCON and it's available on ITConversations.
My last session for the day is the "Lightning Talks" session. A collection of 11 short 5 minute talks on any subject really. For example, Piers Crawley is now singing a song... and using singing as an example for managing complexity. Next lightning talk is Gavin Starks speaking on "streaming from ex military soviet radio telescopes" (here). And many more.
Posted by Matthew at August 21, 2004 02:14 PM