The latest site to get this treatment is the Glastonbury festival, normally I wouldn’t blog about this but, unlike the others there are a number of things of note.

The site can be found at bbc.co.uk/glastonbury although it redirects you to 2010. Interestingly if you try to change 2010 to 2009 or 2008 etc it takes you to the Archive page for that year not the site for that year.

First, the site seems to be making use, at least in part of the new BBC design language with bold fonts, the funky slider and large arrows.

Pictures are everywhere, in promos, across the bottom and top of the page and although the page is heavily laden with content – still feels relatively minimalist.

There are even floating butterflies and flowers.

Another point of note is the incredible level of integration with the greatest radio station on the planet, BBC 6music. There is a big listen (what’s next) box at the top giving you the chance to listen straight from the page.

Then within the site, under the line-up the 6music presenters have written about and picked their acts of choice from the hundreds playing what is the greatest festival in the world.

And finally the third thing I wanted to point out – the Archive. The BBC has been slowly making its archive of content available in collection form over the last few years.

The Glastonbury site is now in on this act with video from every year of the festival back to its launch in 1970.

And like the homepage the Archive page makes use of the slider – two of them in fact.

The first is one linking specifically to content and then underneath that a year based slider – click the year to find out more.

The years page includes a few video clips, text information, the full line-up and memories from other people visiting the page who may have gone that year.

And what’s interesting about the site is the constant use of social media throughout. From widgets you can embed in your own pages to the ability to share from everywhere to facebook, twitter or more.

This is an impressive direction and possibly the best implementation of the new style guide yet on any BBC page.

And the best is yet to come – in what is sure to be a trial run of technology ahead of the next Olympics – the BBC will be streaming the main stages live on the website – this along with video on-demand of performances form the main stage and the Introducing stage (probably posted to the Intro website).

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In the Red is a black comedy about a serial killer attacking bank managers and leaving them covered in coins.

The main protagonist is George Cragg, a BBC Radio 4 crime correspondent who, as well as reporting on the murders works towards solving them.

In the middle of the whole thing is a little side story of two BBC Executives (Controllers of Radio 4 and Radio 2) played by John Bird and Stephen Fry that later led to the brilliant Absolute Power, also by Tavener.

In The Red was first shown on TV in May 1998 – a whole 12 years ago and a year after I finished compulsory education.

Unfortunately I have found no reference to it ever being repeated, it hasn’t been on any of the digital channels run by UKTV and isn’t even available on iTunes.

Fortunately some very nice person has posted it to YouTube – in 16 parts (thanks to the YouTube 10 minute limit) so I have finally been able to watch it – and it more than stands up to time.

It is worthy of its cast, it is worthy of the brilliant story that I first fell in love with through the radio version. Search for “In the Red” John Bird on Google and you’ll find it.

It’s worth checking out but if anyone from BBC Worldwide or UKTV reads this – I’d happily pay to see it in quality.

I get my music in many different ways – promoters and bands send it to me (en mass some days), I get mp3s, I use the BBC Introducing uploader, I use MySpace BUT mostly I make use of 6music.

Not just to discover music that’s just been released but to discover music I might not have heard the first time around for some reason.

BBC 6music is the only station in the country brave enough to let its presenters have a say over what they play.

OK I’m not disputing the fact that BBC 6music have a playlist, they do – in fact they have three, an A, B and C list – but they also give their presenters a free choice over some of the songs they play.

In fact they even have a link to their message boards from the BBC 6music Playlist page giving listeners the chance to discussion, dispute and debate the playlist.

That gives it one of the most diverse music profiles in the world and a selection of brilliant presenters that are interesting to listen to and engage with.

The live sessions on station from some a massively diverse range of musicians and the live music at gigs and festivals and the archive sessions with people like John Peel all make for more than just a DJ led station with the odd tested song.

If you cut BBC 6music you should cut BBC Radio 3 as they’re both as important as each other when it comes to core BBC broadcasting just with different music tastes.

If the BBC gave John Peel a budget, a blank piece of paper and an empty radio station to fill – 6music is what he would have come up with.

Save 6music – please  - for the sake of British music and the next generation of music fan.

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The iPlayer team are now introducing a number of other features like linking to a specific point and chapters – next up I’d love to see comments and ratings.

But one of the shows missing from iPlayer, a major part of the BBC Radio 4 output is Desert Island Discs – as a format there is so much you could do with it online.

But there has always been a rights issue around it as it was created in a pre-digital era by someone obviously not under a BBC staff contract.

However that problem seems to be solved with an announcement on the BBC Radio 4 blog that not only will DDI be available on the iPlayer but will also eventually be a podcast and there will be some cool web features surrounding it.

The suggestion on the original Radio 4 blog post said: “we have plans to make the website an all-singing, all-dancing affair – encouraging people to compare their choices with the choices of castaways, looking at the most selected tracks etc.”

Which all sounds brilliant – but I hope it amounts to more than just a list of people that have been on the show with details of the songs the songs and selection – that is great content but not ‘all singing and all dancing’.

You can see an example of this approach in place on the pre-March 2009 Desert Island Discs BBC site.

That information still exists, it’s just that now you go to the /programme site for that edition of DID – which means that in theory this info exists in a data form somewhere.

So what I’d like to see is a cool web app – let me sign in with my BBC iD account, let me enter my choices (songs, book, luxury item) and then match me to the closest DID guest.

In fact this could be expanded to match me with other DID users with the data posted to my BBC iD profile page along with my iPlayer viewing et al.

And finally – on the new DID site, as well as this cool matching app, how about linking the song titles to Spotify so they can be listened to again while splitting out the music and making the interview portion available for ever.

If a link straight to spotify isn’t possible (for legal/impartial reasons) why not create a version of the Buyer’s Guide (currently being trialled with The Archers Audiobooks) and have a page for every song (tied to /music) with details of all legal online sources for that song including last.fm and Spotify.

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The first of my picks features the dulcet tones of Derek Fowlds (aka Bernard Woolley) in a three part documentary series originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1997 but repeated on BBC 7.

It’s called How to beat Sir Humphrey and features Derek Fowlds reprising his Yes Minister role as Bernard Woolley reading a guide to the Civil Service as written by one of the original Yes, Minister creators, Antony Jay.

In the first part Anthony Jay explores public protest and even on to action committees in his guide to beating bureaucracy and officialdom.

Part two is HERE and Part three is HERE.

My second part is at the same time similar and completely opposite – it’s presented by someone that has always annoyed me as a broadcaster in the past and my first BBC Radio 5 Live pick – it’s the Christian O’Connell Solution.

I’ve already said he annoys me, I’ve never been able to stand more than a few minutes of his style before – but it’s either the guests, the format or something about BBC Radio 5 Live that matures and makes presenters more interesting.

The premise of the show is that Christian is joined by a panel of guests who then set about setting the world to rights and coming up with usually over simplified solutions to a number of issues.

The first show featured Bob Mills (I first saw him on Sky1 hosting Games World), David Tennant (no introduction needed) and Kirsten O’Brien (CBBC presenter who described the presenters at CBBC as gay, childless or don’t like kids).

It was available as a podcast so didn’t require any effort in getting it and was easy to skip if I didn’t like it – but I found myself enjoying it and wanting more after it was finished – so yeah, a surprise hit for me.

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