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Just been listening to the Guardian Media Talk podcast and have found out that the BBC iPlayer is much more successful that competitors such as ITV.com, Channel 4oD and Sky Anytime. This is mainly down to promoting it in newspapers (I have seen many adverts) and on television ‘adverts’, it is wrong to call anything on the BBC an advert as they do not have adverts. I suppose it is also down to the fact that people trust the BBC. Not only were they the purveyors of Freeview who kept it going but should also be the push that on demand needs. iPlayer is also to launch as a television based service on Virgin Media soon.
I think that iPlayer is easy because you don’t need to download anything. It is also really advanced and web 2.0 because it is flash player based meaning that you don’t have to download any pain in the backside plugins for Windows Media Player, Realplayer or Quicktime (although to be fair Quicktime is usually quite reliable). It works just like any flash player on YouTube or MySpace.
The BBC is now offering programmes on their new MySpace profile. This however is not branded as the iPlayer on MySpace or anything like that, but simply BBC Worldwide. I quite enjoy using both iPlayer and 4od. I haven’t used 4od for a while now but the iPlayer is always there and quick to use whenever I miss Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
JUST heard it on BBC News. Yahoo! has rejected Microsoft’s plans to buy them. More on this soon. You heard it here first.
It’s a good week for MySpace as they finally seem to be doing significant with the site to make it a bit more ‘web 2.0′. For the last few months users have been able to decide between the classic homepage or a plain white new homepage. Now users can choose a theme for the new look homepage which actually makes it a bit more worth using. I’m still not too sure about whether to use the new one or not as the old one was so much easier to use. Personally I think MySpace needs almost a complete redesign with a new structure, aiming somewhere near Facebook’s design with much consistancy and navigation in the same place on every page of the site. Here’s some screencaps for the pleasure of viewing for people who don’t have MySpace.
2 of the new homepage themes
The classic theme which has graced our screens for ages
In my humble opinion, MySpace need’s to sort it’s self out and apply a new design to all of the pages of the site, anything which isn’t the homepage hasn’t really changed although I have spotted some nice AJAX in use in places like on Facebook where a dialog can popup for adding friends for example rather than having to open a new page.
The BBC are currently in the same position - they have redesigned the homepage which is on offer as a beta but haven’t yet made changes to the rest of the site. It kind of reminds me of the HTC Touch where you have a good looking touch screen design home
