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Linked Data at the BBC

Paul Rissen
February 29, 2012

Linked Data at the BBC

A talk I gave a while back reviewing the BBC's approach to Linked Data, its' use as a design principle on /programmes and in Sport, and possible futures.

Paul Rissen

February 29, 2012
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Transcript

  1. Linked Data at the BBC
    Paul Rissen, Senior Information Architect, BBC Future Media
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    Hello.

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  2. A little Web Theory...
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    First, a little bit of Web theory and history.

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  3. THE WEB DONE RIGHT
    THE DREAM OF SIR TIM BERNERS-LEE
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/agirregabiria/5731646386/
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    What is linked data? what is the semantic web? it’s ‘the web done right’ - it’s what TimBl first
    proposed.

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  4. IN THE BEGINNING...
    RISE OF THE MACHINES
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/marc_smith/6246433245
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    At first, it was all about the machines - you had to know the exact address of a machine.

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  5. WHERE WE ARE NOW...
    THE WEB OF DOCUMENTS
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanvenn/3687559590
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    Now, it’s about the documents - the addresses we type, mean we retrieve documents - no
    matter what computer they’re on.

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  6. IT’S NOT THE DOCUMENTS, IT’S THE THINGS...
    THE GIANT GLOBAL GRAPH
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/522427911/
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    But really, people (mostly) don’t care about the documents. They care about the concepts
    discussed. And that’s what linked data is. The data part is just how we represent it - what
    matters is the concepts.

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  7. WHAT’S THE MEANING OF THIS?
    PEOPLE CAN EXTRACT IT, MACHINES, ON THEIR OWN, CAN’T.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/3973599885
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    Why? Because as humans, we can read a document and construct a web of meaning in our
    heads. Computers can’t. They’re reduced to text string matching. But we can help them get
    smarter. And by doing so, we can get better results.

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  8. THE URI IS THE THING
    THREE BASIC RULES
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    Use URIs to identify things, not just pages.
    Use HTTP URIs so people can find those things using web browsers.
    Link to other relevant URIs so people can discover more things.

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  9. Putting this into practice
    Thursday, 16 August 2012

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  10. BBC PROGRAMMES
    A PAGE FOR EVERY PROGRAMME
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    page for every programme, findable in google, we can aggregate blogs/tweets about a
    programme.

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  11. BBC MUSIC
    A PAGE FOR EVERY ARTIST
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    page for every artist played across BBC radio - we can pull people through from shows >
    artists and back.

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  12. BBC NATURE
    A PAGE FOR EVERY SPECIES
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    Vast archive of David Attenborough etc - page for every species - search for ‘Lion’ or ‘Polar
    Bear’, and we’ll be near the top.

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  13. User Benefits
    Thursday, 16 August 2012

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  14. PERSISTENCE
    WEB DESIGN FOR THE FUTURE
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    Persistence is important, because it’s terrible user experience if you lose pages. It’s the main
    reason you’ll be hated.

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  15. MULTIPLATFORM
    DESKTOP, MOBILE, TABLET, IPTV - ONE WEB
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    Doing things this way makes multiplatform easy. Rather than having to invest loads of money
    on each new platform that comes along, get the data, the information about the things right
    first, then just build presentation layers.

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  16. OUR WEBSITE IS OUR API
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    We want to encourage others to build stuff with our stuff.

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  17. Thursday, 16 August 2012
    ...stitching everything across the BBC into one single thing. Because that’s how our minds
    work.
    It’s a Web, not just a delivery platform.

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  18. Thursday, 16 August 2012

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  19. Thursday, 16 August 2012

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  20. Business Benefits
    Case Study: Sport
    Thursday, 16 August 2012

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  21. TOO MANY MANUALLY MANAGED INDEXES
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    Currently there are too many pages to manage manually for a small editorial team 7 days a week
    We need to drastically reduce the number of pages that are manually managed - by approximately 300
    There are approx 320 manually managed ‘indexes’ - 150 or so in football, rugby teams, cricket teams and further ambitions around F1
    Difficult to integrate statistical information with editorial
    which is why the metadata and tagging projects are an integral part of long term strategy

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  22. WORLD CUP 2010
    A PAGE FOR EVERY TEAM, GROUP AND PLAYER
    Thursday, 16 August 2012

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  23. THE SPORT ONTOLOGY
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    We’re seperating concepts from content. Using the intelligence we have about the concepts to
    make the UX better - and lighten the workload for our staff. Does need good management of
    the data, but the benefits are worth it.

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  24. DYNAMIC SEMANTIC PUBLISHING
    Thursday, 16 August 2012

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  25. DYNAMIC SEMANTIC PUBLISHING
    Thursday, 16 August 2012

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  26. DYNAMIC SEMANTIC PUBLISHING
    Thursday, 16 August 2012

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  27. LONDON OLYMPICS 2012
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    Working with external sources & partners too - geonames, LOCOG data etc. Stitching BBC
    into the wider Web.

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  28. IN SUMMARY, THEN..
    - THE WEB CAN BE ABOUT MORE THAN JUST DOCUMENTS
    - DESIGN AROUND THINGS YOUR USERS CARE ABOUT
    - ONE URI PER THING - PERMANENCE IS KEY
    - DESIGN FOR THE WEB FIRST, THEN APPROPRIATE PLATFORMS
    - LINKING CONCEPTS PROVIDES GENERATIVE JOURNEYS
    - SAVING LABORIOUS, HAND-CRAFTED LINKING WORK
    - STITCH INTO THE WIDER WEB - BENEFITS FOR YOU, BENEFITS FOR ALL
    Thursday, 16 August 2012

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  29. Thanks!
    Any Questions?
    Paul Rissen, Senior Information Architect, BBC Future Media
    @r4isstatic
    http://www.r4isstatic.com
    Thursday, 16 August 2012
    Hello.

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