A new updated version of the BBC's hugely successful iPlayer is just "weeks away" and will add radio and personalisation.
The news came at Broadcast's Digital Channels Conference from BBC head of digital media technology Anthony Rose.
"In a few weeks time, we are going live with an all new iPlayer that has radio and TV all in the same interface," he said.
The recommendations will be based on genres and include an Amazon style "people who liked that, liked this".
Rose said that different personalisation techniques will be tested over the next two to three months and will then "have a shoot-out" to decide which are adopted (Why not just use a combination of all the several different techniques available, a la Sky? - Ed).
Broadcast magazine said Individual users on shared computers will be able to protect and build on their own profile with a personal log in, possibly by selecting an avatar. Rose predicted that a lot of the scheduling for these genre clusters will be done by computer but said there will always be a need for human schedulers.
"The endgame is that the linear scheduler isn't quite dead yet. Long live the online scheduler," he said.
As yet there's no word on whether they'll be keeping the delightful black and pink or upping the encoding rates.
There's a very interesting pice on the iPlayer in today's Media Guardian by the paper's former TV critic Gareth McLean. It's well worth a read in full.
And he's right - the iPlayer is changing the way that we all watch, consume and enjoy TV - and not just BBC programmes either.
While Sky Player, 4OD and (snigger) ITV.com are in competition with the iPlayer, they are also benefitting from the huge marketing muscle that was put behind the launch of the iPlayer (ok, the third launch of the iPlayer - but then nothng really works until version 3 anyway...). Every single BBC show on every BBC channel had an iPlayer promo. Perhaps someone who's a media buyer could put a value on that advertising for us - I certainly can't even begin to.
What the BBC has done in launching the iPlayer is shift the public consciousness. TV on demand, on a computer, in bed on a laptop, on the train on my iPod is now easy, convenient and fun (and not difficult, techie and hard). This is VoD for all of us however we chose to live our lives.
Gareth asks what's next for the iPlayer. The question should really be, what's next for the market that the iPlayer has created? And because here at Download Monkey we always like to come up with the answers to the questions you're asking, and while we already have reviews of the major VoD services, we're currently busy doing a head to head of the big key VoD players. We'll be looking mainly at the the things that we think now matter - ease of use, quality of picture and content available.
We'll try and make it as easy as possible to see at a glance which service it's right for you - ie: should you be spending any of your precious time even bothering with it? Because Gareth, that's where we go next with this. Mainstream...
Ashley Highfield, outgoing director of BBC future technology and incoming Head of Kangaroo/SeeSaw has announced that more than 75 million viewers have downloaded programs from the BBC iPlayer since it launched at Christmas.
That is a lot of people!
Talking at the Google Zeitgeist forum (Where was our invite...?) he also said there had been 21 million download requests in April, up from 17 million in March.
Huge success. Oh yes.
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So, Sky Anytime is now SkyPlayer.
Is this a shameless cash in on the iPlayers ubiquitous status as the nations most well known streaming and download service? They do sound pretty similar don't they...
There may be some ulterior motives behind the similar names besides the obvious cash in, as there may be some BBC content available on the SkyPlayer. Broadcast Now has revealed that Sky and the Beeb may be in talks to host BBC content on the SkyPlayer.
Sk-i-player anyone?
Yet more download TV cross pollination! The godly BBC iPlayer is now available on Virgin Media's cable system. Over 350 hours of BBC content from the last week of TV is available through this red button service.
The iPlayer is fast becoming a true multi platform service, and thanks to its excellent design it has few detractors.
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Our friends across the pond can finally get their hands on the BBC's content online through iTunes. With the iPlayer only available to us licence payers its great to see the Beeb freeing its programming to the rest of the world for the low price of $1.99 per episode. Although it is getting a little confusing keeping track of whose content is available where. Lets see...BBC on iPlayer, iTunes, Wii and Kangaroo (soon) and ITV on Catch Up, iTunes and Kangaroo (soon) it'll be hard to move through the Internet without bumping into some kind of downloadable show...
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James, son of 'billionaire tyrant' Rupert Murdoch and former head of Sky has blasted the BBCs iPlayer service saying it is “squashing a lot of competitors...I’m not saying it is a bad product, but I am saying it does crowd out competition and innovation."
Our opinion? The other companies involved in putting content on the web have access to the same technology as the Beeb, it's just that they haven't done as good a job as the BBC. OK, so the BBC doesn't need advertising, but 4oD does, and that is on a par with the iPlayer.
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Speaking at the eForum on Web 2.0, Jim Cicconi, vice president of legislative affairs for AT&T claimed that the Internet as we know it will collapse in 2010. The infrastructure simply cannot cope with the amount of date being transferred. Remember - it's a series of tubes.
Who is to blame? Actually that is the question and the answer. According to Tiscali - the BBC's iPlayer is a major drain on the bandwidth. So blame Dr Who.
The other drain on bandwidth is the increasing demand for HD videos. HD takes up 7 to 10 times the bandwidth of normal low res-web video.
So next time you watch a crystal clear video of a kitten falling down, you're definitely killing the Internet. Experts say so.
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New 'Must See' review up! The Download Monkey goes head to head with the Business Hedgehog - Sir Alan Sugar in The Apprentice. Any good? Take a look, and have your say.
Great news about the iPlayer coming to the Wii.
"The video download and streaming service that lets people catch up with BBC programmes will soon be a channel on the hugely popular game console."
[BBC News]
Its great to see the BBC making its content availble on as many formats as possible. Give it a few months and you will be able to watch last nights The Apprentice on your toaster. Still a shame there isn't more classic content available though.