currybetdotnet
This is Martin Belam's blog about information architecture, journalism and digital media. Read about newspaper website design, site search management, talks and presentations I've given, and IA and UX events I've attended or organised. Read my opinions on the future of news and journalism in a digital era, on media policy and regulation in the sector, and on the emergence of local and hyperlocal news services. Find blog posts about new media best practice, and notes from media and web events. Explore the 'old' media relationship with 'new' media, and read about my work at The Guardian and at the BBC.
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At the risk of sounding obsessed with the BBC this week, it seems that like most of the people I follow on Twitter, last weekend I very much enjoyed Sherlock. There is some interesting stuff going on with the new media support for the programme.
Two websites referenced on screen, Sherlock's "Science of deduction", and the blog that Dr. Watson's therapist is encouraging him to write, both exist. There are some nice touches on the latter, notably comments left in the name of Watson's sibling Harry, who was also referenced in the show's dialogue.
This isn't a new thing for BBC dramas, they've been doing it for at least 5 years. The archives of this blog are littered with posts from 2005 as the revival of Doctor Who was supported by websites for Geocomtex, U.N.I.T., Bad Wolf and pseudo-companion Mickey.
It is worth bearing in mind that these off-bbc.co.uk domains are the type of things that add numbers into the long list of domain names the Corporation owns which occasionally vexes the press. And also worth remembering that they don't seem to fit in Erik Hugger's fabled 'definitive' list of BBC websites.
They also illustrate the increasingly complex issue of new media rights around television shows. The fictional blog belonging to fictional character Dr. John Watson bears actor Martin Freeman's image on something being operated by the BBC. Mary Portas, by contrast, uses her own website & Twitter to provide a live chat back channel when her Queen of Shops show is being transmitted by the BBC. Presumably both had to be negotiated up front.
I'm looking forward to the next episode - even more so since spotting the theory on the Feeling Listless blog that the title role is actually "the later cantankerous version of the Eighth Doctor finally getting a tv series albeit called something else and not played by Paul McGann but you can't have everything".
