

BBC Things: A single reference for things that matter to the BBC and audiences - BruceM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/

======
click170
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
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/1610c842-3ba4-4923-96b2-2c282b9c...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/1610c842-3ba4-4923-96b2-2c282b9c4861)
"men's parasport 100m" will that eventually link to info like
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/commonwealth-
games/2014/results/s...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/commonwealth-
games/2014/results/sports/athletics/mens-para-sport-100m-t37) or am I barking
up the wrong tree.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/c7079009-0991-49bb-86d9-1800dc46...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/c7079009-0991-49bb-86d9-1800dc469b0a)
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
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.

------
nl
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-a56478a9...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/things/80731fc5-49c3-459a-93f7-a56478a929b7)

[2]
[http://dbpedia.org/snorql/?query=DESCRIBE+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fdb...](http://dbpedia.org/snorql/?query=DESCRIBE+%3Chttp%3A%2F%2Fdbpedia.org%2Fresource%2FKevin_Rudd%3E)

------
Gustomaximus
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
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-
BBC...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Opening-up-the-BBCs-Linked-
Data)

------
Twirrim
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.

------
chishaku
Similar:
[http://developer.nytimes.com/docs/semantic_api](http://developer.nytimes.com/docs/semantic_api)

------
j1o1h1n
Dalek

> No results found for dalek.

Bah. Humbug.

