Statistics on BBC iPlayer Usage

CXO magazine this month has an interview with John Linwood, CTO at the BBC, about the amazing success of the iPlayer, the BBC’s on-demand video service. You can only read the interview in their print magazine at present, however they do give us a great infographic showing iPlayer usage patterns.

The iPlayer has demonstrated the desire of people across the UK to access on demand content, and has simultaneously raised the ire of broadband providers who’ve seen download levels rocket. The iPlayer infrastructure vends 12.5Gb/second of pre-processed video to the many different players it supports – from mobile phones, through computers to the mainstream satellite providers who then help distribute the data themselves. Arguably the BBC is in a unique position around the world, being funded by public money which means that the content is effectively ‘owned’ by the British public already. Whatever the reason though, you can’t demand the success of the venture from a technology perspective.

[From The Next Web]

Swine Flu Dynamic Infographic

As cases of the, now pandemic, swine flu breach 1,000 in the UK, the BBC has run a great dynamic infographic to show the spread of cases globally.

The animation is run using the slider along the bottom, showing both the increase in cases of the flu and the related deaths – in the light and dark circles respectively. Thankfully at this time the death figures are still low, and we can only hope that the preparedness plans in place around the world will keep it that way, but still the BBC graphic is a wonderfully simple yet effective illustration.