currybetdotnet Articles archive

A brief history of Olympic dissent: Athens 1896
The selection of Beijing and The People's Republic of China to host the 2008 Olympics was always a controversial choice, which has thrown a sometimes unwelcome spotlight on the country. China's record on Internet censorship, human rights, the death penalty and the environment have all been questioned by the Western media as they cover the build-up to the games, and the torch relay, intended to be a celebration of the spirit of the games, was instead a focal point...

Read the full post - Published August 1, 2008 in Articles, Cyprus, Greece, Olympics, Politics, Popular, Turkey

A lifetime of lost playlists: Part 1 - Pump up the volume
Format-driven changes in my music consumption over thirty years Nowadays we are surrounded by 'attention' data about music. Amazon tells us that other people who bought the same music as us also liked something else. The iTunes music store gauges the relative popularity of tracks from an artist. Last FM allows us to let all our Facebook friends know what we've just been listening to - however embarrassing it might be. And we miss it when it isn't there....

Read the full post - Published July 10, 2008 in Articles, Music, Popular

Daily Mail website review for the Press Gazette
If you were interested in my opinions of the Daily Mail's recent website re-design, but found you didn't have time to wade through my over-wordy multi-part review the other week, you might be interested in an article published in the most recent edition of Press Gazette. They asked me to contribute a much shorter review of the Mail for their 'Expert Eye' column - "Net gains for Mail Online". The longer review series has also been summarised on The Editor's...

Read the full post - Published July 7, 2008 in Articles, Daily Mail

"People, Places, Subjects" - BBC Topic and Guardian keyword pages: Part 1
Some time in 2001 I went to my first ever meeting with people from BBC News Online. I was enthusiastic, fresh-faced, and completely oblivious to the 'difficult sibling' history that existed between the BBC New Media & Technology department where I worked, and the senior managers from BBC News Online that I was meeting. I suggested they do two things. Firstly, remove the 'noindex' meta tag at the individual story level on news.bbc.co.uk. Secondly, based on the evidence of search...

Read the full post - Published July 4, 2008 in Articles, BBC, Popular, The Guardian, Web

The Daily Mail site redesign: Part 1 - Navigation & RSS
Way back when I first started the currybetdotnet blog, the Daily Mail was one of the first newspapers to get its own category, as I alternated between writing about BBCi Search and having a go at the Mail's coverage of things like London's telephone numbering system. These days, I try very hard to keep my honest appraisal of the Daily Mail's site functionality apart from my occasional irritation with the editorial coverage in the paper of things like games and...

Read the full post - Published June 23, 2008 in Articles, Daily Mail, Newspapers, RSS, Web

"You're wired!" - 7 things The Apprentice can teach you about new media projects
I'd never watched The Apprentice until this year, when a procession of people we were staying with in London had it as unmissable 'appointment' television. I was immediately hooked, and once we got back to Greece, I had an unmissable 'appointment' to download the show as quickly as possible every Thursday morning, whilst trying to avoid 'spoilers' on the British media web. Throughout the series, I couldn't help thinking about the parallel lessons that could be drawn from the programme...

Read the full post - Published June 20, 2008 in Articles, Popular, Television

Euro 2008: The websites - Switzerland & the Czech Republic
After years of organisation and planning, Euro 2008 kicks off tonight in Switzerland. England, of course, after the debacle of their final qualifying match against Croatia, will not be there. The last time England failed to qualify for a Euro finals was in 1984. In a way, that might make for a more entertaining tournament for me to watch. I remember enjoying the World Cup in the USA in 1994 precisely because every goal didn't involve me instantly trying...

Read the full post - Published June 7, 2008 in Articles, Euro2008, Football, Web

Begging more questions than answers - the BBC Trust bbc.co.uk review: Search
I was hoping that Alfred Hermida was going to blog the whole of the recent BBC Trust review of bbc.co.uk so that I wouldn't have to read it, but sadly on the backstage.bbc.co.uk list Brian Butterworth piqued my interest with some choice quotes about search and external linking, so I had to succumb. What has intrigued me is that of the handful of recommendations that the Trust had made to BBC management, two of them seem somewhat contradictory. The Trust...

Read the full post - Published June 6, 2008 in Articles, BBC, Search

Euro 2008 host cities on the web: Salzburg
If the random number generator employed by UEFA in their ticket ballots had been calibrated a bit differently, right now I would be in the last stages of planning my trip back to Salzburg in Austria to see some matches at Euro 2008. I put my ticket application in before the final draw was known, and, as it turned out, I would have had tickets to see two matches featuring my adopted homeland of Greece. But it wasn't to...

Read the full post - Published May 26, 2008 in Articles, Austria, Euro2008, Football, Web

IA for tiny stuff: Exploring widgets and gadgets - Part 1
This is part 1 of a 4 part article - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 We are all familiar with the basic history of how mankind developed the written word. Initially, to keep any message preserved, or available to be read by a large audience, you basically had to bang it into the side of some rock. This wasn't a very portable format, and it certainly didn't have RSS feeds. Over time humans improved their written communication,...

Read the full post - Published April 17, 2008 in Articles, IA Summit, Widgets

Newspaper "Site Search Smackdown": Round 1 - The Daily Mail vs The Sun

Published April 8, 2008 in Articles, Daily Mail, Newspapers, Search, The Sun

'RSS Feeds: Managing the Mechanism' article for FUMSI

Published March 28, 2008 in Articles, FUMSI, RSS

Postcard from Macau #1: Selling adverts in the Chinese 'free' press

Published March 16, 2008 in Articles, Macau, Newspapers, Travelogue

Making the most of blog comments: Part 1 - Promoting blog comments

Published February 20, 2008 in Articles, Blogging

24/7 TV news websites: Part 1 - Introduction

Published January 8, 2008 in Articles, Media, Television, Web

Ten years of BBC Online

Published December 22, 2007 in Articles, BBC, Blogging, Nostalgia, Web

Blogging at the BBC: Part 1 - My introduction to blogging

Published December 11, 2007 in Articles, BBC, Blogging, Popular

How accessible are Britain's online newspapers? Part 1 - Daily Express

Published November 6, 2007 in Accessibility, Articles, Daily Express, Newspapers, Product review, Web

The London freesheets and the web - Part 1: Music reviews

Published September 20, 2007 in Articles, Music, Newspapers

Reckless Records RIP - Part 1: An End Has A Start

Published August 13, 2007 in Articles, Music, Popular

A tour of Tour De France news sites - Étape 1: LeTour.fr

Published July 23, 2007 in Articles, Cycling, Tour de France, Usability, Web

Why my Doctor Who blog failed: Part 1 - The Greatest Show In The Galaxy

Published July 2, 2007 in Articles, Doctor Who, Popular

Newspapers 2.0: How Web 2.0 are British newspaper web sites?

Published May 8, 2007 in Articles, Media, Newspapers, Popular, Web

My 'biased' view of the Biased BBC blog

Published March 14, 2007 in Articles, BBC, Popular

Smarter searching: liberating information from the Internet

Published October 9, 2006 in Articles, Search

Building my rebooted:bbc.co.uk homepage

Published June 16, 2006 in Application design, Articles, BBC

Designing your website to be search engine friendly - part 1

Published February 22, 2006 in Articles, Search

Gaining Online Advantage: Building an effective web presence in a large organisation - part 1

Published January 1, 2006 in Articles, Web

Managing 'Glue' at the BBC: Introducing the BBC - part 1

Published December 8, 2005 in Articles, BBC, Usability, Web

The software used to access the BBC homepage

Published October 22, 2005 in Apple, Articles, BBC, Linux, Microsoft, Popular

Putting a F__k Off Dalek on the BBC Homepage isn't big or clever - part 1

Published July 24, 2005 in Articles, BBC, Doctor Who

Fine Tuning Your Enterprise Search - part 1

Published December 3, 2004 in Articles, Search

How search can help you understand your audience - part 1

Published May 6, 2003 in Articles, BBC, Search

A day in the life of BBCi Search - part 1

Published March 27, 2003 in Articles, BBC, Popular, Search