Shownar: reflecting online buzz around 91Èȱ¬ programmes
Post categories: 91Èȱ¬ Online
| 13:35 UK time, Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Today sees the launch of ; a new prototype from 91Èȱ¬ Vision which aims to track online buzz around 91Èȱ¬ TV and radio programmes and reflect it back in useful and interesting ways, aiding programme discovery and providing onward journeys to discussion about those programmes on the wider web.
For as long as the 91Èȱ¬ has been making programmes, audiences have been talking about them and we have done our best to showcase some of those conversations on-air, via programmes like Feedback and Points of View. However, it is only with the advent of the internet that those conversations have become accessible to a much wider audience. Here on bbc.co.uk we have a range of blogs, messageboards and other commenting tools, which enable users to talk about our output. However, much of the conversation about 91Èȱ¬ programming inevitably happens away from bbc.co.uk on people's personal blogs or microblogging services such as Twitter.
Shownar aims to track the wealth of activity that takes place around 91Èȱ¬ progammes online and work out which are currently gaining the most attention. So why do it? To borrow from the site's pages: "First, it will help you find shows that others have not only watched, but are talking about. Hopefully it'll throw up a few hidden gems. People's interest, attention and engagement with shows are more important to Shownar than viewing figures; the audience size of a documentary on 91Èȱ¬ FOUR, for instance, will never approach that of EastEnders, but if that documentary sparks a lot of interest and comment - even discussion - we want to highlight it. And second, when you've found a show of interest, we want to assist your onward journey by generating links to related discussions elsewhere on the web. In the same way news stories are improved by linking out to the same story on other news sites, we believe shows are improved by connecting them to the wider discussion and their audience."
So, how does it work? In the first instance, we decided to focus on tracking in-bound links to programme-related pages on bbc.co.uk, so we could be confident that the discussions were actually about a 91Èȱ¬ programme, rather than a different usage of, say, 'archers' or 'apprentice' (although intelligent keyword matching remains a future aspiration). Rather than develop technology to crawl the web ourselves, we decided to partner with data providers who were already doing that, and who could supply us with good, clean data. We took a look at a range of possible suppliers, and for this initial prototype chose data provided by , Nielson Online's (which indexes over 100 million blogs), and (which searches microblogging services like , and for links, even when they are shortened using URL shortening services such as and ). We are also ingesting data from LiveStats, the 91Èȱ¬'s own real-time indicator of traffic. Once ingested, this data is processed according to a specially created algorithm to calculate the 'buzz measure' for every 91Èȱ¬ programme - more detail on the algorithm can be found on .
The front-end interface offers a range of different ways into the data, from the 'fresh buzz' chart on the , to the which shades the 'hottest' programmes on each of the 91Èȱ¬'s TV channels / radio stations (which also have ). There is also a , enabling you to filter programmes available to watch on demand by channel, genre and time of day. The genre cuts are particularly compelling, enabling you to see, for example, . There's also the , which provides full access to all of the data, including permalinks, so I can tell you that the was 91Èȱ¬ Two's .
The site has been live as an internal 91Èȱ¬ beta for a few weeks now and it's already started to have a real impact on my consumption habits, introducing me to programmes I had missed in the schedules such as Radio 2's , 91Èȱ¬ One's and 91Èȱ¬ Two's . It's also doing the job I hoped it would do in terms of onward journeys, with particularly rich discussion around Radio 4's . To find out how your blog links and microblog updates can end up on Shownar (and for information about moderation) visit the .
We're keen to hear your feedback on Shownar, so please leave a comment below or send us your thoughts by email. If the prototype proves successful, we are hoping to integrate the functionality of Shownar into bbc.co.uk. Possible future developments include additional data sources and a full API.
Shownar was designed and built by , with input from a small 91Èȱ¬ project team: Katherine Sommers, Mark Simpkins, Catherine Wingate, Yuri Kang, Andrew Barron, Chris Sizemore and myself. We hope you enjoy using it.
Dan Taylor is Senior Portfolio Executive, Internet for 91Èȱ¬ Vision.
Comment number 1.
At 30th Jun 2009, Smilie Minogue wrote:Will you just be analysing the statistics from Shownar or will you actually be looking at what people are saying about the programmes?
There's no point saying that a programme is popular because of the amount of "buzz" it's created - the majority of people might be discussing how rubbish the programme is!
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Comment number 2.
At 30th Jun 2009, Green Soap wrote:There sure was a lot of "buzz" about Bonekickers!
What a poor name, and as for following Blogs, and the Twits - how incredibly unoriginal.
I hope you'll be following the likes of Digital Spy, a rather more established community than those other fads.
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Comment number 3.
At 30th Jun 2009, TV Licence fee payer against 91Èȱ¬ censorship wrote:"Today sees the launch of Shownar; a new prototype from 91Èȱ¬ Vision which aims to track online buzz around 91Èȱ¬ TV and radio programmes and reflect it back in useful and interesting ways, aiding programme discovery and providing onward journeys to discussion about those programmes on the wider web."
Any chance of having that in English rather than 'Merkating speek'?...
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Comment number 4.
At 30th Jun 2009, onpause wrote:thanks for the comments on Shownar, everyone. i'm part of the 91Èȱ¬ team behind Shownar.
good point, Blanche Hunt's Grimace (aka Nippie Sweetie) -- that's why we don't use the term "popularity" at all on the Shownar website, but, rather, "buzz". Shownar is not about popularity, it's only about discussion which references 91Èȱ¬ programmes on the Web, whether positive or negative.
so, the top "buzzing" programmes on the Shownar charts could very well be there due to less than glowing reviews -- but that's important for the 91Èȱ¬ to reflect in some way, we feel.
Tengsted, assuming Digital Spy publishes a blog online, then, yes, we are almost definitely following it. and when/if it links to a 91Èȱ¬ programme webpage, then very likely Shownar will link to the Digital Spy post. see for the background on how links to blog posts get surfaced on Shownar.com.
as for "fads", well, if faddish websites are where people are discussing 91Èȱ¬ programmes, that's where we need to look for buzz, i'd suggest? still, i think i get your point: we shouldn't forget about the more established arbiters of taste here?
Boilerplated, how's this:
blog posts and microblog posts (for instance, twitter posts) that include a link to a 91Èȱ¬ programme webpage get tallied up by Shownar as "buzz votes"... the more buzz votes a programme and/or episode gets, the higher, in general, it'll rank on Shownar charts.
the ranking system is a bit more subtle than that in practice, but this, i hope, gives you a less "merkating" sense of what Shownar is up to?
more here:
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Comment number 5.
At 1st Jul 2009, TV Licence fee payer against 91Èȱ¬ censorship wrote:"blog posts and microblog posts (for instance, twitter posts) that include a link to a 91Èȱ¬ programme webpage get tallied up by Shownar as "buzz votes"... the more buzz votes a programme and/or episode gets, the higher, in general, it'll rank on Shownar charts."
All very good but how do you tally those who mention programmes outside the blogasphere, how do you monitor Usenet, or web forums such as Digital Spy etc.
The 91Èȱ¬ seems to be obsessed with blogs and microblogs and thus is obtaining very lop-sided views... :-(
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Comment number 6.
At 1st Jul 2009, AndyCotgreave wrote:I think is quite an exciting project.
One thing I see as an issue straight away:
When you go to a show's Shownar page, you get a chart of recent buzz - however, there's no colour legend or vertical scale, so while it may be pretty, it's utterly meaningless!
Anyway - I'm sure you'll be making lots of interesting changes. I'll keep my eye on this - it'd make for a good way to choose what to watch.
Andy
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Comment number 7.
At 1st Jul 2009, Kat Sommers wrote:@boilerplated
Thanks for your feedback! I also worked on Shownar, and hope I can answer your question.
We decided to limit the number of data sources searched for the prototype. And although the data currently used by Shownar includes some from messageboards and forums, we'd love to get more. This is a work in progress, so any suggestions for other places to look are welcome.
Kat Sommers, 91Èȱ¬
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Comment number 8.
At 1st Jul 2009, Green Soap wrote:Onpause, yes, you can assume that's what I was putting across.
as for "fads", well, if faddish websites are where people are discussing 91Èȱ¬ programmes, that's where we need to look for buzz, i'd suggest?
Just going for the fads like the Twits and Blogs whilst ignoring a whole host of long established message boards and forums is not very inclusive, is it? You'll not get the complete picture from T&B alone.
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Comment number 9.
At 1st Jul 2009, DaveC wrote:Tengsted,
I can see what you are saying, but the word "Prototype" has been used in both the article itself and in the comment responses. This is a system under test, and therefore not completed or ready for full roll-out.
If the system works, surely it can and will be expanded to include as many sources as possible when the final release comes around ... if not, what was the point in wasting development time that could have been better spent.
Prototypes are generally about making sure that the system works and can provide you with the information you require, rather than the actual information gathering.
If the 91Èȱ¬ limits the gathering to those sites on full roll-out that would be a mistake, but at the moment I would suggest it is almost irrelevant.
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Comment number 10.
At 1st Jul 2009, _marko wrote:RE "sparks a lot of interest and comment"
How will you know if the interest is due to the programme item itself or due to the distortion created by excessive trailing and marketing?
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Comment number 11.
At 1st Jul 2009, TV Licence fee payer against 91Èȱ¬ censorship wrote:#10. At 2:43pm on 01 Jul 2009, _marko wrote:
"How will you know if the interest is due to the programme item itself or due to the distortion created by excessive trailing and marketing?"
Or even excessive blogging! Also, how does the system know the difference between a blog that criticises and one that praises a programme?...
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Comment number 12.
At 1st Jul 2009, Smilie Minogue wrote:It doesn't.
See comment 4 from Onpause in response to my previous comment.
(Apologies, I don't know how to do quotes or anything flash on blogs. They don't seem to come with a set of instructions!)
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Comment number 13.
At 1st Jul 2009, onpause wrote:hi again.
in reference to "how does the system know the difference between a blog that criticises and one that praises a programme?", Blanche Hunt's Grimace (aka Nippie Sweetie) is right -- we don't, at this point at least, intend to highlight the difference between criticism, praise, or indifference...
partly because that's a significant technological challenge (see, for instance, but also because Shownar isn't intended to reflect positive or negative opinion per se. it's all about linking to Web-based discussion, and it's intended to lead Shownar site users to discussions of 91Èȱ¬ programmes.
then users can read those discussions, positive, negative, & indifferent, and decide for themselves whether to watch or listen or perhaps take part in the discussion and comment themselves...
by the way, this isn't at all to say that the 91Èȱ¬ isn't interested in negative (and positive!) opinions about it's programmes -- of course we are interested in that. it's just to say that the collection of this type of feedback isn't the purpose of the Shownar.com prototype...
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Comment number 14.
At 1st Jul 2009, TV Licence fee payer against 91Èȱ¬ censorship wrote:#13
Thanks for the reply, actually I think that this will be a tool more for your (the 91Èȱ¬'s) own internal use more than those outside of the industry, by it's very nature (repeats excepted) comments will be very much reactive.
I've probably not put the above very well but I hope you get the gist of what I'm getting at, being able to track and read what ordinary, none focus/survey group, people are saying without them actually knowing that you are doing so will be very valuable indeed I suspect.
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Comment number 15.
At 2nd Jul 2009, cping500 wrote:I think its worth pursuing but in its present state its not very user friendly (for example for a couple of presenters I know!) I recommend the team and its supporters find a nice chill out room and ask not what its for,
but
What is Shownar LIKE?
in other words what is the metaphor (cf 'desktop' or 'search engine' or 'memory')
The current one is buzz.... = filtered noise ...like me listening for the mobile to squeak or rather counting the squeaks
but it is also a (poorly organised) search engine
or even Google's 'mention count' of key words.
or just a count of pink petals falling from a cherry tree in a week in April
What is it like?
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Comment number 16.
At 2nd Jul 2009, Kat Sommers wrote:#15
Hi @cping500, thanks for your feedback!
Shownar does use search data, but I think its primary function is not as a search engine, but navigation. It helps you find unusual and interesting 91Èȱ¬ programmes. It also does a lot more than filter noise - there's more about that here .
Any suggestions for how we could improve it?
Thanks!
Kat Sommers, 91Èȱ¬
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Comment number 17.
At 2nd Jul 2009, Green Soap wrote:The ability to change the Region/Nation of the 91Èȱ¬ Channel would be good. Currently it's defaulted to 91Èȱ¬ 1 London/91Èȱ¬2 England.
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Comment number 18.
At 2nd Jul 2009, Kat Sommers wrote:#17
Hi @Tengsted,
That functionality is available (though we're aware it's a bit hidden). On the home page, scroll down a bit until you get to the "Show Finder" on the right hand side of the page. You'll see a link to change regions/frequencies next to it.
Hope that helps.
Kat Sommers, 91Èȱ¬
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Comment number 19.
At 2nd Jul 2009, Green Soap wrote:Thanks Kat!
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Comment number 20.
At 3rd Jul 2009, James_Welsh wrote:Hi @Kat Sommers,
I'm one of Digital Spy's co-founders. You can find our forums here: www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/
How do we go about getting our users' views on 91Èȱ¬ content surfaced on Shownar? DS is Britain's pre-eminent entertainment and digital TV news and discussion website with 5.5m unique users every month - and the forums are always discussing 91Èȱ¬ programmes!
If we can do anything in a technical sense to facilitate this please let me know.
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Comment number 21.
At 3rd Jul 2009, Kat Sommers wrote:#20
Hi James,
Thanks for your interest. The prototype aimed to demonstrate what was possible with a limited number of data sources. As such, it currently only links to blogs, and doesn't specifically search forums and messageboards (although some do creep in).
We'll try to keep everyone updated on its development, but in the mean time you can send feedback here:
Kat Sommers, 91Èȱ¬
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Comment number 22.
At 5th Aug 2009, Spartacus wrote:If you're looking to partner with people who are monitoring the internet anyway, perhaps you need to talk to the US Gov't about getting a feed from their "Carnivore" program.
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Comment number 23.
At 5th Aug 2009, omegaLexa wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 24.
At 23rd Sep 2009, JamesStGeorge wrote:LOL 91Èȱ¬ lighter still. Trivial twitter about sums up the dumbing ever down 91Èȱ¬.
For this sort of nonsense we lose all the 91Èȱ¬ proper messageboards for news.
Cheap ways to avoid accepting real people's debate, while looking modern.
Blogs are useless we all know that, vanity show offs scared of entering debates. Hence the big move into them by the 91Èȱ¬.
You have had proper messageboards for some time and been serially closing them down. The 91Èȱ¬ never has any interest in that rich source of specific 'buzz'. The 91Èȱ¬ is rapidly moving to systems where the 91Èȱ¬ selects what they agree with, so they can ignore the public, having been shocked how the public do not share the 91Èȱ¬ in house political position.
Oh but trivial Archers messageboards are no problem light nonsense and the trivial get to predominate the 91Èȱ¬.
So how are you collecting news and current affairs 'buzz'? You just announced the closing of the last one of your own messageboards. Still the 91Èȱ¬ prefers total control like Have Your Say where post are not even put up sequentially as received. Where no debate is possible, no questioning.
Oh well never mind the 91Èȱ¬ thinks it is so clever with this sort of totally irrelevant latest wizzo drivel 'Shownar'.
Guess the public have to go without what they want in News messageboards so the 91Èȱ¬ staff can keep raking in the J Ross like general gross overpay.
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Comment number 25.
At 23rd Sep 2009, HD wrote:Instead of the blogs having to link to a page on bbc.co.uk when they talk about a programme, couldn't they just add something like a keyword for the programme, and each programme could have a unique keyword?
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Comment number 26.
At 8th Dec 2009, Kat Sommers wrote:#25
Hi @HD1080,
Sorry for such a late response! I didn't see your comment until now. Keywords were considered for the system, but because it is automated, and has over 8,000 programme names in a moving 15-day window to contend with, it was difficult thinking which keywords could be used for each.
For instance, searching for "apprentice" wouldn't bring up very good results for one of our most popular shows. But looking for /apprentice would.
We hope to include keyword searches later in the project, but for now decided to focus on what was possible in the short-term, and build a scalable system.
Thanks for your comment, and sorry again for my late respnse.
Kat Sommers, 91Èȱ¬
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