Attack of the killer Gulls
This morning I had a story I wrote linked to from the main BBC Homepage – great if it wasn’t for the fact that the story is four years old. But it isn’t out of date, still relevant.
The other BBC Homepage?
I wrote a few days ago in my Photo Blog about the BBC Homepage and more specifically about it’s emergency version. It had to switch due to heavy traffic.
Emergency Home
It’s been an eventful day for the BBC Homepage team today – first there were technical issues that caused them to publish a simplified version of the page and then there was a big news story.
What do you think?
Well I’ve finally got round to doing it – I’ve changed the look of Up Your Ego after 12 months with the same, or at least very nearly the same, theme.
I’ve even, for now, dropped the orange concept – I’ve moved to a blue/black colour scheme and am using the brilliant Revolution Magazine template to create a sort Theme2 style.
The new homepage of thousands
Well now that everyone else has started talking about it, and you can see it yourself at certain times on a Monday – I figured I’d post a little more of the BBC Homepage and how some of the customisation will look (from someone that hasn’t worked on the page and isn’t on the team that did).
The best way to talk about something is to show it working – so I’ve put a few screen grabs together that show the bits of most interest to me and bits that are most different.
I haven’t included a screen grab of the grey navigation bar that is currently on EVERY BBC website as it isn’t there – the grey bar has been dropped from the homepage – as has the bbc.co.uk logo – replaced instead with the three blocks across the top.
Most of the new homepage can be changed and moved around – the bits that can’t (below the top navigation area) are the main promotional box (that controls the colours of the homepage).
As you can see from the animation above – clicking on one of the promo items (coloured boxes) will not only change the image and text in the box but will change the colour scheme of the whole page – I’m not sure I like that very much. I do like the idea of being able to set the colour scheme but I want to set it permanently – not based on the promo I’m viewing.
Although, changing the whole page does draw more attention to whats being promo’d and should help drive more people to whatever is in that space – thus making it MUCH more valuable.
Which should help given that the directory (currently on the left hand side of the screen) has been moved to the bottom of the page and put in a dark grey box (similar to some blogs I’ve seen).
Now back to the bits in the middle. Every block (apart from the promo space) can be changed, you can turn them off or on and even change whats contained within them.
You can have them all on
Or if you fancy it you can have them all off
But I don’t really see the point in having them all turned off as it looks a bit silly – unless you just want a simple BBC search engine – in which case I suppose it works.
The new BBC Homepage is a sort of Google Homepage come Page Flakes but just for BBC content – although I’m sure there is scope to increase that and open it up at a later date.
Two things that are clearly absent from the current beta release is localisation – being able to pull in stuff from your home town only extends to the Weather widget and elements of news but I think more is coming. The other is the iPlayer – there isn’t a mention of it or much in the way of A/V stuff. Given that the Radio Player becomes iPlayer Radio next week – I’m sure there will be more to come.
Anyway – this also brings blogs to the front of the BBC – there’s a fab range of blogs from really talented people across all areas of the Corporation and the new homepage makes it easier to find them.
And finally the clock – god how I love the clock. I hope this isn’t a short term thing, I hope the clock stays and isn’t a nostalgia trip to mark ten years of Aunty on the web.
New look for BBC
In December the homepage of many internet users in the Uk is going to change – well in reality it won’t properly change until January unless they actually decide to view the new version – but thats a technicality.
What am I waffling about? OK I’ll tell you – bbc.co.uk has lived in its current form for a fair few years now – the blue/white boxes and the large image at the top – people know it and whether you like it or not – it works.
But there has been calls for more interactivity on the homepage, for more flexibility and for more emphasis on what the BBC offers across the output.
Well this is what the new look bbc.co.uk will do when it’s launched, as a preview in December and then fully (with the old homepage being turned off) from January 2008.
As you can see from the image – everything is bigger and there is less to see. Well actually there isn’t that much less but it uses newer web technologies to allow you to view multiple things in each box.
It’s basically bringing the homepage into line with some of the stunning new designs being introduced across the rest of bbc.co.uk (see BBC Music, Nature, Lifestyle) and makes the whole things easier and more personal.
You even have a big link at the top of the page to customise the homepage – at the moment this just allows you to drop or add a selection of pre made BBC widgets but I’m sure this will increase in functionality over time.
You can even change the colour of the homepage – although not permanently.
The colour thing seems to be tied to the main promo space – so the colour of the page depends on which of the four options you choose – in this case Radiohead, Top Gear, Spooks and Robin Hood.
This is a nice touch and really draws attention to the main promo and in turn will make it a much more valuable place for promoting what the BBC is doing – across TV, Radio, Online and Podcasting.
The search box is also MUCH more prominent – mainly thanks to the top bar (that appears on every bbc.co.uk site) being dropped from the main homepage – this gives the site much more freedom.
The directory has moved to the bottom of the page.
All in all I think this is a great development for the BBC – but there is still a chunck of work that needs to be done in terms of adding functionality and being able to create custom widgets – say a features widget for your home town.
For example – in the settings I’d like to be able to put in my post code and have it customise the whole homepage to where I live – so news from the news online site for say Hemel Hempstead, weather for Hemel, what’s on in Hemel and stories from the Where I live site for the town.
But that’s not overly important – the functionality is there to customise things so its just a matter of time.
Nice one – and it will launch December as a ‘see our new homepage’ and then fully in January.