The BBC need a TARDIS to transport their Doctor Who RSS URLs
There was an astonishing message in the official BBC Doctor Who News RSS feed yesterday: Now that we've switched over to our shiny new site, our news stories are being created in a different way. Therefore you'll no longer see news stories added to this page. Instead, you'll find them if you follow the link below. More importantly, if you subscribe to our RSS news feed using the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/syndication/rss091.xml you'll need to update it to: http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/rss.xml That way you'll...
Doctor Who and the Fan Who Never Was
I noticed a flurry of referrals from The Pirate Bay and Mininova this week, which is, frankly, a reversal of the normal direction of traffic from me to those sites. My recent interview on currybetdotnet with Paul Wilson about file-sharing - "Doctor Who and the Pirates" - has been cited in the latest round of the saga about Big Finish and the people who upload their work to peer-to-peer networks. An open response to the Big Finish podcasts was posted...
Postcard from Macau #4: Hong Kong's missing TV archive
I recently spent three weeks visiting Macau, the former Portuguese territory on the south coast of China. As a former colony like Hong Kong, it is now a 'Special Administrative Region'. This post is one of a series looking at aspects of information design, user experience, internet use and journalism that interested me when I was there. In the first of my posts about my recent trip to Macau, I mentioned the Sunday Morning Post. This is an English...
The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Doctor Whoniverse
Thirty years ago today, at 10:30pm on a Wednesday night, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a new landmark sci-fi comedy - the first part of Douglas Adam's "The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy". I was first introduced to the radio series by a school friend. Staying round his house in the early 80s, we'd stay up as late as we could get away with, listening to some C90 recordings he had of the episodes. He didn't have totally impeccable taste mind...
Doctor Who and The Pirates
In the 1960s, as Patrick Troughton's era drew to a close, Doctor Who faced The Space Pirates. By the 2000s it was Internet pirates who posed a threat to the Doctor's adventures. Audio drama producers Big Finish have found their officially licenced Doctor Who stories leaking onto peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. To help combat this, they've launched their own legal download service. I spoke to Paul Wilson from Big Finish about the 'battlefield' they face. A little while ago I...
Top Gear the second most popular downloaded TV show on BitTorrent
Yesterday TorrentFreak published an end of year round-up of Top 10 Most Pirated Movies and TV Shows of 2007. Nestling in amongst the usual suspect at #2 in the TV chart was the BBC's Top Gear. Top 10 TV downloads - Most popular episode on Mininova 1. Heroes (2,439,154) 2. Top Gear (1,217,923) 3. Battlestar Galactica (706,209) 4. Lost (705,724) 5. Prison Break (608,487) 6. Desperate Housewives (457,805) 7. 24 (524,303) 8. Family Guy (522,839) 9. Dexter (435,670) 10. Scrubs...
Doctor Who against ID cards?
Thanks to the successfully revived show I'm very easy to buy for at Christmas these days - and a good proportion of my presents came branded with the Doctor Who logo in several variations. I also got this card from Paperlink, drawn by Steve Best. At first glance it is just a joke about relative dimensional properties of the TARDIS. A closer inspection, however, seems to reveal a subliminal message from the Doctor about Britain's plans for an ID card...
I'm gonna spend my Christmas with a Dalek
Well, not literally, we'll actually be trying to balance Western European traditions and Greek Orthodox Christmas in Crete, as opposed to last year when we were in Munich, and the year before when we were in Qatar. However, anyone who has been checking out my last.fm profile will realise that I am now only half the Grinch I used to be, and near the top of my Christmas pop charts is The Go Go's "I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With...
I make Doctor Who news at last
Technically, it wasn't even an ambition I was consciously aware of having, but after the weekend it appears that I can now die happy. I was just casually perusing my Doctor Who news RSS feeds, when, sandwiched between news that David Tennant had won a Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland award, and that Andrew Cartmel was going to a convention in the USA, was my name. Thanks to my article on the BBC's Internet Blog about 10 years of Doctor Who...
Doctor Who versus the Darleks on BBC Prime
I suspect that amongst the chattering classes it is considered "poor form" to blog negatively about your client of the moment, but, sometimes the target is so obvious, and so tuned to your special interest, that you can't resist. So here I am blogging about the BBC, a BBC website, and Doctor Who. BBC Prime are about to start broadcasting Doctor Who. I remember at the time the first (new) series transmitted in the UK, that one troll on the...
"The Tardis and Multiplatform" - Julie Gardner talks about Doctor Who's multi-media incarnations p>
Doctor Who and the Vanishing Plaques p>
National Television Awards vote seems wide open to multiple vote fraud p>
Why my Doctor Who blog failed: Part 6 - Enlightenment p>
Why my Doctor Who blog failed: Part 5 - Terminus p>
Why my Doctor Who blog failed: Part 4 - The Invisible Enemy p>
Why my Doctor Who blog failed: Part 3 - The New Adventures p>
Why my Doctor Who blog failed: Part 2 - The Long Game p>
Why my Doctor Who blog failed: Part 1 - The Greatest Show In The Galaxy p>
Advert banned for being unfair to corporate football p>
Doctor Who Cuttings Archive on 'BBC.co.uk - promoting Doctor Who 2005' p>
Doctor Who exclusive later today? p>
The Cybus Corporation on the web p>
Children in Need and Doctor Who - a lot can happen in 12 years p>
Michael Sheard: 1940 - 2005 p>
K9 is Back! p>
Putting a F__k Off Dalek on the BBC Homepage isn't big or clever - part 4 p>
Putting a F__k Off Dalek on the BBC Homepage isn't big or clever - part 3 p>
Putting a F__k Off Dalek on the BBC Homepage isn't big or clever - part 2 p>
Putting a F__k Off Dalek on the BBC Homepage isn't big or clever - part 1 p>
Points Of View Publishes Dalek Homepage Feedback p>
Audience Reaction To The BBC's Doctor Who Themed Homepage p>
Daleks Invade The BBC Homepage p>
BBC News - Now With Doctor Who Spoiler Protection p>
Bad Wolf Invades BBC Search p>
BBC.co.uk Message Board Area At Last p>
United Nations Intelligence Taskforce on the web p>
Doctorin' the BBC Complaints site* p>
Complaining about the new Doctor Who p>
Doctor Who TV Movie on BBC.co.uk p>
New Doctor Who site(s) on bbc.co.uk p>
Doctor Who's "Rose" leaked on the internet p>
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About Martin Belam
I'm an internet consultant and writer, with 8 years experience in product management, information architecture, and user experience design for global brands like Sony, Vodafone and the BBC. I specialise in advising on search, widgets, online news publishing and bulk email delivery.
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email: martin.belam@currybet.net
tel: +44 (0) 7801 828718
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