Marc Hibbins • Projects

BBC Radio 1 DJ pages

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November 2009

BBC Radio 1 launched its new websites last year giving a makeover to the 40+ sites for all its DJs and shows for Radio 1 online — http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/.

Stars the likes of Chris Moyles, Zane Lowe, Jo Whiley and Annie Mac and shows such as The Surgery, In New DJs We Trust and the famous Chart Show all received a complete overhaul, led creatively by Studio Output and built by Collective London.

Each programme boasts its own microsite, aggregating all online content in a single destination. There are audio and video galleries, which will now serve as permanent archives for each show, profiles and integrated blogs.

The sites have been built on a number of BBC content-management systems, most notably the /programmes platform, allowing extensive integration with BBC's iPlayer and ensuring the most popular content is well organised and quickly found.

Building on a new initiative in metatagging, each broadcast produces a detailed run-down and complete tracklist, of all the songs played and segments featured for every show. Where available, songs also come with an audio preview.

All, of course, is built to the highest standards and guidelines of accessibility and technical practice as required by the BBC.

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BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ pages

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November 2009

Launched alongside the new Radio 1 shows redesigns, BBC Radio 1Xtra rebranded 30+ microsites for all their DJs based on the same work.

With the same feature set, each site got a complete reworking to integrate with BBC's /programmes pages, iPlayer, and /music platform.

Some of the highlights include: The Breakfast Show, MistaJam, Ronnie Herel, DJ Target and Westwood.

Like the Radio 1 shows, each programme features audio and video galleries, profiles, blogs and detailed tracklists. All artist and track information integrates with the BBC's ever-expanding linked data /music platform, which catalogues all music played on their radio shows.

With another API, visitors can now rate and comment on video content for the first time. All the sites have been built with the BBC's homegrown Javascript library Glow.

These sites have since been reused to also create Radio 2's Chris Evans and Simon Mayo pages and going forward will be used in the 6 Music and Asian Network rebrands.

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Facebook Unlimited

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November 2009

The new Facebook entertainment channel, Unlimited, brings you the most talked about Facebook subjects, exclusive interviews, features, competitions and polls.

A custom-built Facebook page with a handful of accompanying native Facebook applications, Unlimited is about sharing — a platform for all the latest buzz news from hundreds of Facebook communities.

Fans can interact by sending in photos and videos of themselves reviewing gigs, on nights out, in fancy dress — anything and everything, or they can simply join in the chat.

The site is a one-stop shop for the latest news and gossip found on Facebook, aggregating the best videos, photos, groups and trends in a single hub, gaining over 40,000 fans within three months of launching.

Using on a custom content-management system on the server-side and built with a client-side Flash application, Unlimited takes advantage of native Facebook features to handle user-generated content, such as fan videos and photos, comments and Likes.

Note: The main Flash application is no longer live.

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Quizmania.tv

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October 2008

Quizmania.tv is a web-based, live mass-participation game show. Exclusively online, the show combines a high-quality live video feed of a presenter-led programme with up to 1,000 paying contestants simultaneously competing for real money prizes with a number of interactive games.

Departing from the late-night television format in which the show originally found fame, this online version of Quizmania is a straightforward game of skill and general knowledge.

Rather than entrants joining a queue and playing one-at-a-time, hundreds of players compete simultaneously, facilitated by a custom-built quiz engine running on Flash Media Server, which times, logs and audits every question and answer — a system as equally complex as robust, made a necessity with real money prizes up for grabs.

In addition to the server-side application, the browser-based Flash site and gaming interface allowed all online players to chat and send real-time messages directly to the studio, to which the presenter could respond and award bonus prizes.

A foray into the capabilities, limits and licensing of Flash Media Server and the delivery of streamed live video via content distribution networks.

Quizmania.tv received an Honoree Selection at the 13th Annual Webby Awards.

Although now offline, the site has been bought and reused by The Sun as 'The Sun Quiz Live', broadcasting every weekday afternoon between 1pm and 3pm, presented by Debbie King, Caroline Feraday and Gavin Inskip.

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E. Tautz

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August 2010

A website redesign for E. Tautz, a sporting military tailor based on Savile Row.

Founded in 1867, E. Tautz's heritage is as a sporting military tailor and has provided garments for the likes of Winston Churchill, Edward VII and Prince of Wales.

Dormant as a brand for some time, the website aims to boost its presence — particularly online.

The site delivers customers old and new with information about the brand, its heritage, collection and the quality that goes into the production of the garments.

Built according to the latest HTML5 specification using Javascript-enabled animations and custom deep-linking, the site is both technically advanced and visually captivating without relying on the traditional retreat of Flash.

The site therefore meets the highest standards of accessibility, usability and remains search engine friendly.

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Monocle: 50 Things

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August 2010

For Monocle magazine, 50 Things to Improve the Way You Live is an online special edition to mark the launch of Monocle's Mediterraneo summer newspaper.

An interactive guide to “making your life that little bit better”, it's a showcase of fifty things from insanely sublime to the ridiculously simple aimed at improving your life.

Driven by a simple XML-based system, it was built to facilitate an easily managed staged release, allowing content editors to add a new page of ten items each week for a five week period.

Each item features an individually designed animation, so it was important to create an intelligent loading strategy to handle the large quantity of assets. Behind the scenes there's a self-proritising queue of preloading and background-loading assets to ensure the visitor isn't waiting too long for any content.

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London 2012: Young Leaders

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May 2010

A microsite for the Young Leaders Programme, a London 2012 initiative designed to give a cohort of disadvantaged young people the opportunity to have their lives positively changed in the lead up to the 2012 Games.

The site aims to inform visitors about the programme and demonstrate its success and reach in an engaging and visual way. It showcases the stories of the young leaders and charts their journey throughout the programme, communicating to the general public what's being done to benefit their local community by way of syndicated news updates, a custom blog and individual profile pages.

Associated social media feeds from YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are accumulated alongside news updates and an interactive map highlights the areas where the programme is at work.

Collective were tasked with the building, styling and testing of the site, to be implemented with PostCMS.

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