BBC News refresh: air’s in

March 31st, 2008 • Design, Internet
Tags: Design, Web

Open Firefox this morning, and an old friend shows a new face. The Beeb revamp sparked a fair flurry of debate among colleagues: one camp decided that it was too conservative, while the other concluded that Aunty had shown the maturity you’d expect.

I sit in the latter camp. The design has shifted to the centre of your browser, and also widened to a 1024 width from its long-established 800. But to my eyes, those apparently major moves are invisible. The real beauty is in the care shown around the text: while the old BBC News home was a masterpiece of efficiency, the newcomer is the work of someone who respects words.

Every line has exactly the right amount of space to put the emphasis on the story instead of the design. You simply absorb the news, without fussy artifacts throwing up noise. The only flaw I could find was below the fold: the centre column’s ‘Around the World’ group of links badly needs someone to put more definition to those crossheads. Other than that, she’s a beaut.

Woopra: the live stats addicition starts here

March 31st, 2008 • Business, Internet
Tags: Business, Web

GBTV #337 | Introducing Woopra from Neal Campbell on Vimeo.

Now this I want. I’ve long been a fan of Google Analytics - it’s simple enough to scan-read in seconds, yet clever enough to provide the kind of insights that change the way you work.

But Woopra takes the whole game to a strange new level by going… live. That’s right - unlike Google, Woopra presents a real-time dashboard, showing numbers of users, even incoming search terms from Google.

For a self-confessed stat addict such as myself, Woopra’s as good as handing a vampire an all-night pass to the blood bank. I’m putting the order in for the bank of screens tomorrow morning, one for each site in our portfolio.

The thing’s in private beta right now, but grab your camp bed and join the orderly queue.

Baby Boomers Storm Internet

January 13th, 2008 • Internet, Social
Tags: Life, Social, trends, Web

Everyone knows the UK has an aging population - by 2012, the average Briton will be 132 years old, and all of them will rely on the handful of under-20s to help them cross the road.

Doubt this as fact? Try a new report from Neilsen, which points to a fundamental shift in the age profile of the UK net population. Says the company:

“When looking at how a particular audience is composed by age, a change in share - even by just a few percentage points - actually represents quite a fundamental shift. Age compositions tend to evolve subtly over a number of years so to see such large changes in the course of just a year shows that the Internet population is undergoing a significant ageing process.”

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