4 ms·

BBC Things: A single reference for things that matter to the BBC and audiences

37 points by BruceM 12y ago

chishaku 12y ago
Similar: http://developer.nytimes.com/docs/semantic_api http://developer.nytimes.com/docs/semantic_api
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
click170 12y ago
If I understand the page correctly, it's about opening up BBC data, but I think it could use more explanation and examples about exactly what data they're opening up, and what you can do with it. For example, my first search was for 'top gear', and I got 0 results. I then tried clicking the Politics example, but was still left rather confused.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  Similar. I'm always frustrated that the BBC seem to think that shows disappear the minute that the iPlayer "watch again" period ends, so much so that sometimes there is no reference (that search returns) for shows - nothing to tell you when it was on, or when it will be on again. Meanwhile they do adverts on-screen that don't tell you when the featured shows are actually to be on. Anyway, not to go too far OT: I searched "fawlty towers", no hits. Hmm, what data are they opening up? Then I tried the "politics" link to see what wealth of info there was, then "welsh politics". That last link just gives a terse definition with a source of dbpedia. Okay? Perhaps that's an anomaly. Tried "politics" again and the top subordinate link "politics", similar terse page with 2 source links wikipedia and dbpedia. So far no sign of any BBC data ...? So, is this just a framework at present without being linked to the data? For example http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/1610c842-3ba4-4923-96b2-2c282b9c4861 http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/1610c842-3ba4-4923-96b2-2c282b9c... "men's parasport 100m" will that eventually link to info like http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/commonwealth-games/2014/results/sports/athletics/mens-para-sport-100m-t37 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/commonwealth-games/2014/results/s... or am I barking up the wrong tree. http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/c7079009-0991-49bb-86d9-1800dc469b0a http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/c7079009-0991-49bb-86d9-1800dc46... is just weird - "X is a news story" but no link to the story or details beyond the title. What's the use case that finds utility in that page? "Beta", so this is consider to be fully working and ready to be used except for potential bugs? Seems more Alpha or POC to me based on the data completeness given the lede "a single reference for all of the things that matter to the BBC and our audiences". Final note - the most prominent thing on the OP landing page is a kids program advert.
  - samstarling 12y ago
    Hello! I work on the team that produced this - the BBC's Linked Data Platform. The data our team has can be split into two parts. One is the metadata we store about Creative Works, which represent content created by the BBC (programmes, news articles, blog posts, video clips). This is probably the data that is of most interest to the public, but we haven't opened this up - not yet, anyway. The second is Tag Concepts - things that Creative Works can be tagged with. That's what were surfacing on /things, and at the moment we're only not showing every bit of data we have for each thing. The "Beta" label signifies that it's just a first version to gauge reaction and see what the public want from a site like this. We'll be looking at things like this thread to help us work out where we should go next.
Gustomaximus 12y ago
I searched 'Queen' knowing it has several meanings and I was curious to how it deals with this. The rock band and football club came up first. Then I searched random things like; dog, cat, London, weather. The vast majority of searches lead to music results even when you wouldn't expect it like the latter 2 KW's listed above. The results dont seem overly useful but glad to see people playing in this space as Google seems to be turning into one giant ad and so I like to see work being done in this area
- samstarling 12y ago
  Hey - I work on this. The main areas of the BBC that are using our Linked Data Platform at the moment are News, Sport and Music, which would explain the results you get for "Queen". As more teams in the organisation start using our system, you should see a wider variety of data accessible through the site. We know the search isn't the greatest, and that's something we'd like to improve. There's a blog post that might explain a bit more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Opening-up-the-BBCs-Linked-Data http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Opening-up-the-BBC...
j1o1h1n 12y ago
Dalek > No results found for dalek. Bah. Humbug.
nl 12y ago
Hmm. Not bad, but the data is surprisingly sparse. For example (former Australian Prime Minster) Kevin Rudd[1] is described as "Politician". DBPedia has much more comprehensive data on him[2]. It does at least have sensible "sameAs" links to DBPedia and in some cases Freebase and NYTimes, so that is somewhat useful. But I'm not clear what this is supposed to give that DBPedia and Freebase don't. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/80731fc5-49c3-459a-93f7-a56478a929b7 http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/80731fc5-49c3-459a-93f7-a56478a9... [2] http://dbpedia.org/snorql/?query=DESCRIBE+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fdbpedia.org%2Fresource%2FKevin_Rudd%3E http://dbpedia.org/snorql/?query=DESCRIBE+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fdb...
Twirrim 12y ago
No results found for Mr Blobby. ... No results found for Noel Edmunds. ... No results found for Katy Hill. ... No results found for Jamie Theakston. ... John Peel - Radio DJ Well at least they remembered him :-/ ... No results found for Steve Lamacq. (he's even an active DJ for the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04j364l http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04j364l ) Can't say I'm particularly impressed.

37 points by BruceM 12y ago

chishaku 12y ago

Similar: http://developer.nytimes.com/docs/semantic_api http://developer.nytimes.com/docs/semantic_api

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

click170 12y ago

If I understand the page correctly, it's about opening up BBC data, but I think it could use more explanation and examples about exactly what data they're opening up, and what you can do with it. For example, my first search was for 'top gear', and I got 0 results. I then tried clicking the Politics example, but was still left rather confused.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
Similar. I'm always frustrated that the BBC seem to think that shows disappear the minute that the iPlayer "watch again" period ends, so much so that sometimes there is no reference (that search returns) for shows - nothing to tell you when it was on, or when it will be on again. Meanwhile they do adverts on-screen that don't tell you when the featured shows are actually to be on. Anyway, not to go too far OT: I searched "fawlty towers", no hits. Hmm, what data are they opening up? Then I tried the "politics" link to see what wealth of info there was, then "welsh politics". That last link just gives a terse definition with a source of dbpedia. Okay? Perhaps that's an anomaly. Tried "politics" again and the top subordinate link "politics", similar terse page with 2 source links wikipedia and dbpedia. So far no sign of any BBC data ...? So, is this just a framework at present without being linked to the data? For example http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/1610c842-3ba4-4923-96b2-2c282b9c4861 http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/1610c842-3ba4-4923-96b2-2c282b9c... "men's parasport 100m" will that eventually link to info like http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/commonwealth-games/2014/results/sports/athletics/mens-para-sport-100m-t37 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/commonwealth-games/2014/results/s... or am I barking up the wrong tree. http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/c7079009-0991-49bb-86d9-1800dc469b0a http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/c7079009-0991-49bb-86d9-1800dc46... is just weird - "X is a news story" but no link to the story or details beyond the title. What's the use case that finds utility in that page? "Beta", so this is consider to be fully working and ready to be used except for potential bugs? Seems more Alpha or POC to me based on the data completeness given the lede "a single reference for all of the things that matter to the BBC and our audiences". Final note - the most prominent thing on the OP landing page is a kids program advert.
- samstarling 12y ago
  Hello! I work on the team that produced this - the BBC's Linked Data Platform. The data our team has can be split into two parts. One is the metadata we store about Creative Works, which represent content created by the BBC (programmes, news articles, blog posts, video clips). This is probably the data that is of most interest to the public, but we haven't opened this up - not yet, anyway. The second is Tag Concepts - things that Creative Works can be tagged with. That's what were surfacing on /things, and at the moment we're only not showing every bit of data we have for each thing. The "Beta" label signifies that it's just a first version to gauge reaction and see what the public want from a site like this. We'll be looking at things like this thread to help us work out where we should go next.

Gustomaximus 12y ago

I searched 'Queen' knowing it has several meanings and I was curious to how it deals with this. The rock band and football club came up first. Then I searched random things like; dog, cat, London, weather. The vast majority of searches lead to music results even when you wouldn't expect it like the latter 2 KW's listed above. The results dont seem overly useful but glad to see people playing in this space as Google seems to be turning into one giant ad and so I like to see work being done in this area

samstarling 12y ago
Hey - I work on this. The main areas of the BBC that are using our Linked Data Platform at the moment are News, Sport and Music, which would explain the results you get for "Queen". As more teams in the organisation start using our system, you should see a wider variety of data accessible through the site. We know the search isn't the greatest, and that's something we'd like to improve. There's a blog post that might explain a bit more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Opening-up-the-BBCs-Linked-Data http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Opening-up-the-BBC...

j1o1h1n 12y ago

Dalek > No results found for dalek. Bah. Humbug.

nl 12y ago

Hmm. Not bad, but the data is surprisingly sparse. For example (former Australian Prime Minster) Kevin Rudd[1] is described as "Politician". DBPedia has much more comprehensive data on him[2]. It does at least have sensible "sameAs" links to DBPedia and in some cases Freebase and NYTimes, so that is somewhat useful. But I'm not clear what this is supposed to give that DBPedia and Freebase don't. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/80731fc5-49c3-459a-93f7-a56478a929b7 http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/80731fc5-49c3-459a-93f7-a56478a9... [2] http://dbpedia.org/snorql/?query=DESCRIBE+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fdbpedia.org%2Fresource%2FKevin_Rudd%3E http://dbpedia.org/snorql/?query=DESCRIBE+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fdb...

Twirrim 12y ago

No results found for Mr Blobby. ... No results found for Noel Edmunds. ... No results found for Katy Hill. ... No results found for Jamie Theakston. ... John Peel - Radio DJ Well at least they remembered him :-/ ... No results found for Steve Lamacq. (he's even an active DJ for the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04j364l http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04j364l ) Can't say I'm particularly impressed.