7 posts tagged “mobile”

I have always lived my life counter-cyclically (sic), leaving Razorfish before the .com crash, buying what became Schematic at the bottom of the last .com recession and then leaving the film business after a series of Sundance Film Festival hits.

From the outside, these moves seemed mad, but most of them proved to be quite prescient, and often lucrative.  Moreover, I'm driven by a need to be intellectually and creatively challenged; complacency isn't in my vocabulary.   I love to make things, and build teams - and businesses.

So today, I've made an announcement which will catch many by surprise. I have decided to leave the BBC to join DMGT, a large British media conglomerate to become the CEO of the division which holds their digital businesses, Associated Northcliffe Digital (http://and.co.uk).

I'm incredibly proud of the work I've done over the past two years at the BBC: the redesign and transformation of the www, mobile and itv services, BBC iPlayer on all of its platforms and of course the mobile and online personalized homepages. Doing one of these would have been an achievement in itself.  These successes and their resulting recognition and awards, the GSMA award for mobile BBC iPlayer, the Bafta nomination for /programmes and the .net awards for the redesigns would have been impossible without the amazing teams and people I had by my side at the BBC, I will miss them incredibly.

But for now it's on to the future and a new, much larger challenge, and one I hope and believe will be equally, if not more, stimulating and rewarding.  Given the economic and sector transitions in media, publishing, commerce and technology - I have heard opportunity knocking - and can't help myself but open the door and let her in!

Best

My team launched our newest proposition today - the BBC Mobile Homepage - with customization and device detection.. an AMAZING feat..   it's a nice book-end to the work I started just over a year ago with the revamp of the BBC's homepage.  I've co-written a blog about it on the BBC Blogs about it - which you should take a look at.  We've had a TON of positive response on it in the press - including some reviews. I've posted some of them below:

BBC revamps mobile site focusing on customisation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/mar/11/bbc-mobilephones

http://www.nma.co.uk/Articles/41820/BBC+launches+beta+of+personalised+mobile+service.html

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/32848/BBC-revamps-mobile-site

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/mar/11/bbc-mobilephones

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031100389.html

http://ariel.gateway.bbc.co.uk/viewDailyNews.asp?storyID=20950

http://www.t3.com/news/new-bbc-mobile-homepage-goes-live?=38346

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/11/bbc_mobile_beta/

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/news.phtml/22858/23882/bbc-revamps-mobile-homepage-customisation.phtml

http://www.techdigest.tv/2009/03/i_wasnt_aware_t.html

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?id=3300

http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/entry/419-mobile-content-bits-bbc-updates-mobile-times-going-out-guide/

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2009/03/11/4047600.htm

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/bbc-unveils-new-mobile-homepage-580949

http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2009/3/11/bbc-mobile-website-gets-refreshed/

http://www.mobileshop.com/news/index.php/2009/march/bbc-optimises-mobile-website

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39029453,49301483,00.htm

http://www.indiantelevision.com/end/y2k9/mar/12marge3.php

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/9117_BBC_Mobile_gets_a_Custom_Refre.php

Congrats to Ulyssa, Lucy, Jason, Jon, and the other Jason and the team!

Best

It was a crazy crazy week in Barcelona for Global Mobile World Congress.  I need the weekend just to digest the activities of the week.   A couple of highlights:

- I was elected to serve on the Board of the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF)

- BBC iPlayer won the GSMA award for best audio/video application (the industry's highest honor!) - congrats team.

In the midst of this

Interesting press clippings in no particular order:

One of my BBC teams - the BBC RAD unit got some great coverage

Nic Newman (one of my collegues) is quoted at a conference in Sydney.

Erik Huggers (my boss) interviewed in Silicon iPlayer perpetually in Beta

Piece in Forbes...

 

Hello all,

Been getting lots of Press lately on iPlayer:

The Financial Times

The Telegraph

Profile in Paid Content

MAD

A few more but I'll make you google them.

Best

So the .Net magazine awards are in and my team and their efforts have been well recognized!

.Net awards 2009 (for those who’ve not seen it)

BBC won in the following categories...
- Web application of the year : BBC iPlayer, runners up Gmail & Photoshop Express
- Best redesign of the year: bbc.co.uk, Runners up Last.fm & Facebook-
- Mobile site of the year: bbc.co.uk/mobile, Runners up Google Mail & Facebook

Not bad for a year of work!

Five-minute interview: Richard Titus, BBC

"The mobiThinking five-minute interview: [not-very-strictly-enforced] interview: Richard Titus, Future Media Controller, Audio & Music and Mobile Media, BBC"

Weirdest thing happened this past two weeks.. Mobile market in UK grew 25% in the last three months, projected to group triple digits the next nine (actually same behavior happened worldwide).  Our mobile service  is pretty compelling and the market seems to finally be ready. 

A bit more press on it here....

Lots to learn, quite excited.

Hi all, I've been a little busy the past few weeks, sorry to go so dark. First of all, I got a promotion: I'm not running one of the three product groups for the BBC. (Still reporting to Erik Huggers, the former Microsoftie and all-around-great-guy who brought me in a year or so ago.)  I'm running a few odds and ends including all of the digital parts of our Audio & Music offering (including servicing the BBC's radio digital needs (60% of UK radio is BBC) our RAD (Rapid Application Development) and all Mobile for the BBC.

It's a good gig, and I'm really excited about it..  Frankly mobile & Radio alone feel like two big growth areas for the BBC online.

Here's some press about the announcement - some accurate - some not:

Paid Content

The Guardian

NM