Colin's Corner

PCWorld's Redesign

Another IDG title, PCWorld is re-designing its site and will roll out the new design this summer. In the meantime you can see a sneak preview here

The Beeb's Creative Future

On Tuesday 25th April, in a speech (well worth reading) to BBC staff, Director General, Mark Thompson, unveiled his "Creative Future" initiative and outlined a three-pronged approach to refocus all future BBC digital output and services around three concepts - "share", "find" and "play".  This strategy is designed to take the Beeb into a web 2.0 world of “user generated content” and “findability”, of community and metadata.

Five key themes were outlined:
1. Martini Media
2. Serious about entertainment
3. The Young
4. Findability
5. Active Audience

The speech is summarized at MediaGuardian with additional coverage at:

Auntie's dead
BBC's creative future gives into all the buzzwords ever invented
BBC unveils radical revamp
The sun never sets on the Beeb

Vertical Search Roundtable

DeSilva Phillips has published an edited summary of the “Can Vertical Search Prosper in the Age of GYM (Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft)?” panel held at the DeSilva + Phillips 2006 Media Dealmakers Summit on February 6, 2006 in New York. My co-panelists were Eric Shanfelt , VP eMedia Stretegy at Pention and Mitch Rouda, president e-Media for Hanley Wood.

The goal [of Vertical Search] is to pull together the content from your editors and from your vendors, and most importantly from your knowledgeable user base. So if you’re looking for a product, you do your research but then you ask people who have perhaps bought that product in the past to give you their advice. This deep type of involvement in special-interest areas is not something the general search  engines can offer.