Backflip .

Technology Strategy Board Funding

We are proud to announce that Backflip has won funding from the Technology Strategy Board to continue the development of our second screen platform.

We have teamed up with websocket specialist Nomos Media and Bristol University to create ‘Second Sync’.

Second Sync is already up an running. Using cutting edge natural language processing techniques and making extensive use of linked data we are analysing TV output and schedule information to create an API that will enable the next generation of native and web apps. These apps will be built to complement broadcast television by providing additional media as well as displaying relevant activity on social networks.

At Backflip we are particularly interested in how second screen apps can be used to enhance learning and we’ve built a working prototype that shows how the technology can be applied for this purpose. This prototype is the subject of a previous blog post.

We will be launching our first web app in the autumn. If you would like to keep up to date please follow the project on Twitter.

Learning & Second Screen Apps

With large factual websites content generally sits flat and the job of the editorial team is to curate it. To take users on a journey around the pages and tell a story.

A good example of this is the BBC’s Nature website.

Around 1000 animals and habitats have a single page and sit in one directory (actually they sit in a database and the pages are created dynamically but I don’t want to get too technical).

The BBC have created ‘collections’ that aggregate these pages along different themes. Garden Birds, David Attenborough’s favourite moments, Timelapse photography etc.

The holy grail of the web producer is to find a way to automate this story telling and I’ve worked on many development projects that have attempted to do so with varying degrees of success (using recommendation engines etc).

But what if we could take the careful crafted narrative of a TV programme and use that to guide the user around the web? (more…)

Post #1

First of all, I don’t really like apps. I’ve been working with internet tech since the late 90s and the first thing I thought when Apple launched the App Store in 2008 was ‘Christ, we’re back to making CD ROMS’. And I still think that really. My children, however, seem to love them. (more…)