5 live Now becomes 5 live Connect
From today, the 5 live Now page is being re-branded as 5 live Connect. We'll be promoting this change on the 5 live website and on air.
The most important reason for this is that 5 live Now isn't the easiest thing to explain on air. For example, if a presenter tries to direct listeners to a message published on the page, it can be confusing hearing "Go to 5 live Now...now."
Connect was not the only option. Staff from across 5 live suggested many different names, including the Watercooler, the 5pider, the Squirrel and the Soapbox. There were heated arguments and enthusiastic campaigns. In the end, we decided on 5 live Connect because that's what the tool is supposed to do - connect our listeners with 5 live programmes.
For those of you not familiar with 5 live Now/Connect, my editor, Brett Spencer, summed its purpose up in an earlier post on this blog:
"5 live Now makes the whole network more responsive to listener comment and puts your views closer to producers and presenters - for use on-air and on the web site. We'll pull together online comment, contributions from social networks, texts and emails and feed them directly to programme editors and the radio station as a whole. Your contributions will also be much more visible on the new site. 5 live Now will operate in real-time and give more prominence to the contributions selected."
At the moment, 5 live Connect runs during the Breakfast phone-in and the Victoria Derbyshire programme. We've also used it for special news events such as Budget day and Tony Blair's appearance at the Chilcot inquiry. During the election, 5 live Connect will be a way of sharing your opinion more often. We'll run the page during the three leaders' debates and when the party leaders take part in the Breakfast phone-in.
5 live Connect will also play a central role in 5 live's election story, an exciting application we're launching for the election campaign. We'll have more details on this in a blog post in the very near future.
And for those of you that have got in touch with concerns about the 140 character limit on messages sent directly via the 5 live Connect page, I am happy to tell you that this is being removed completely. Soon you will be able to write as much as you want...but please think of me when you do as I am often the one reading every word!
Aaron Eccles is a senior producer at 5 live
- You can find out more about 5 live Connect here
Comment number 1.
At 17:25 6th Apr 2010, Prosperos Girl wrote:I find it surprising that the name for this new way of connecting with 5 live wasn't properly thought through before start up. It seems odder still that in the renaming, it hasn't been adapted to run alongside the whole of the station's output.
Quote - "5 live Now makes the whole network more responsive to listener comment and puts your views closer to producers and presenters - for use on-air and on the web site. We'll pull together online comment, contributions from social networks, texts and emails and feed them directly to programme editors and the radio station as a whole. Your contributions will also be much more visible on the new site. 5 live Now will operate in real-time and give more prominence to the contributions selected.""
Except it doesn't because it does not cover the output of the whole network
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Comment number 2.
At 17:30 6th Apr 2010, Prosperos Girl wrote:sorry that should read, 'output of the whole station.'
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Comment number 3.
At 22:54 6th Apr 2010, Linda1111 wrote:For some reason I am reminded of BA Connect. Look what happened to that.....
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Comment number 4.
At 09:14 7th Apr 2010, Prosperos Girl wrote:Aaron, I often access pages using a well known mobile Internet phone. There appears to be no link to comment facilities such as blogs and connect from the 5live mobile page. Maybe this is an area for development
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Comment number 5.
At 11:03 7th Apr 2010, Aaron Eccles wrote:Hi prosperosgirl. Thanks for your comments. Regarding your first point, we are working on rolling out 5 live Connect across other parts of the network. I appreciate it can be frustrating that it's not available during all programmes at the moment.
As for #4, 5 live's interactive editor, Brett Spencer, sent me this response:
"We are looking at various areas of development for mobile going forward. At the moment you cannot comment via the 5 Live mobile site but you can contribute if you open the regular site within a mobile browser."
I hope that helps!
Aaron Eccles, senior producer, 5 live
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Comment number 6.
At 11:35 7th Apr 2010, Prosperos Girl wrote:Thanks for the quick reply Aaron. I would just add for Brett that it takes a long time to work out how to open the regular site on the browser as the default seems to be the mobile site.
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Comment number 7.
At 09:53 8th Apr 2010, Tempus Fugit wrote:Two things wrong with it:- 140 character limit if entering on the webpage (texts and FB entries seem to be able to be alot longer) and the way you're trying to read down existing entries if you look at it, say, half an hour into the programme, and a new entry is added and the one you're reading bumps down out of your eye-line. Some sort of pause button would be nice...
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