About Martin Belam and currybetdotnet

currybetdotnet is my personal blog.

I'm an internet consultant, information architect and writer based in London. I've recently returned to the UK after living in Crete for the best part of three years. I arrived there after leaving my native UK in December 2005 and travelling around Europe for three months.

I've got 8 years experience working and consulting on products for global brands like Sony, Vodafone and the BBC. I've also consulted for a range of smaller companies like Lakeland, Chinwag, Rattle Research and Moo. My areas of expertise include the internet delivery of news content, e-commerce, web and site search, search engine optimisation and marketing, online voting, and bulk email delivery. I have also worked on product localisation and internationalisation, and designed the information architecture for music download stores on both the web and mobile phone platforms.

View my CV

I worked for 6 months with Sony NetServices in Austria, as a usability consultant on Sony's pan-European digital music products. Prior to that I worked at the BBC as a Senior Development Producer. My team looked after the development of a range of core production tools for bbc.co.uk. This included online voting, email delivery and feedback mechanisms. I was also responsible for the technical delivery of the old-style the bbc.co.uk homepage. I led the technical production of launches like the BBC's new TV portal, and high-profile votes like The Greatest Painting in Britain.

When I first joined the BBC I worked for 2 and a half years on their online search facility. I did a great deal of work in search analytics to improve the service, and published some of the results on currybetdotnet - A day in the life of BBCi Search. I also developed search related projects, like reporting tools, downloadable search plug-ins, and search 'attention data' displays for the bbc.co.uk site.

You can find quite a few articles on this site about my work at the BBC.

• Blogging at the BBC
• BBC iPlayer launch: The first 14 days
• Managing 'Glue' at the BBC
• The software used to access the BBC Homepage
• Putting a f__k off Dalek on the BBC Homepage isn't big or clever
• The oldest content on the BBC's servers
• People don't like basements but tapes do - A tour of the BBC film archive at Windmill Road
• Fine tuning your enterprise search
• How search can help you understand your audience
• A day in the life of BBCi Search

I've written several articles for the Press Gazette about newspapers online, and I've also done a couple of stints guest-blogging for the BBC. Firstly as part of their reboot:bbc.co.uk homepage redesign competition in 2006, and then as part of a series celebrating the tenth anniversary of the BBC website on the BBC Internet Blog.

On this site I write about mostly write about search, information design, usability, online news, and generally techie stuff. You can find some of the most popular posts, articles and categories here.

Prior to joining the BBC, I worked for a long time at Reckless Records, in both Islington and Soho. There I built a website for them, and picked up lots of juicy expensive vinyl and CD rarities which I mostly sold on eBay in 2005 to help finance our move to Greece.

I studied History at Leeds University, where my special areas of interests were Russia from 1850 onwards, and The Crusades. Whilst studying for my A-Levels I worked part-time in the much-missed Note For Note record shop on Hoe Street, in Walthamstow. Before all of that, as a child, I was mostly into Doctor Who, Lego, & my trusty 48k ZX Spectrum.

So not too far removed from my interests as an adult really.

Why currybet?

My identity for message-boards and online communities has been currybet for years (see me on Flickr, del.icio.us, Last FM, StumbleUpon and so on and so on).

It derives from an annual competition a group of my friends ran for a decade. At the start of the football season we would each draw a random group of teams from the English Divisions. On F.A. Cup Final day we would go on a very unsophisticated pub crawl in Walthamstow, London, and the person whose teams had accumulated the least points over the course of the season had to wear fancy-dress. Anyone who finished less than halfway up the table had to pay for the late night curry of the winners - hence the name "The Currybet".

The first website I made, back in 1999 was to publish the latest statistics and an online version of the fanzine that used to accompany the competition. Sadly Fortunately the site no longer exists.

Obligatory disclaimer

Probably the most important single thing about currybetdotnet though, is that it is a personal site, and the views expressed don't represent or reflect the opinions of my current, or any of my previous, employers or clients.