Round Up Wednesday 2nd February

From The Telegraph: "BBC Online job cuts 'for the better'". Ian Maude, head of Internet at Enders Analysis is quoted:

"...these cuts, which have been driven by the need to slash budgets, will force the Online team to sharpen its focus which ultimately is a good thing for its audience....most of the sections and websites that are being cut are the least popular part of its output."

"BBC Digital Media Project Delayed For Two Years By Siemens Contract Tear-Up" reports paidContent. The relevant press release and the full report can be found on the BBC Trust's website.

From the BBC Research and Development blog: "BBC MyMedia Field Trial Report":

"This EC-funded project studied recommender systems, developing state-of-the-art recommender algorithms and a public source recommender system software framework. In the final year, the project ran four individual fields trials to evaluate the technology in different applications and environments... In the BBC field trial the target application was web-based radio and TV catchup services. The BBC field trial report describes the implementation of the BBC trial, the analysis of the results and the conclusions that followed."

And still at the BBC R&D blog, Richard Wright asks a provocative question: "Can BBC R&D save the world's audiovisual heritage?".

"The temptation is to say "Yes we can" but the realistic answer is "Well, not all by ourselves". But we are on the brink of creating something that can make a major difference to the amount of broadcasting content, and other audiovisual content"

JEDDEH! (Tim Sidwell) says his one year old can use an iPad:

"BBC iPlayer is now a favourite, but being one he hasn't quite worked out how to work that so tends to fire up whatever is on the home page..."

Nick Reynolds is Social Media Executive, BBC Online