Sadly this is the last Olympics that CBC will be covering for a while. That said, this is also the most well covered Olympics in CBC history. Partly thanks to the Internet and cbc.ca.

Don’t Feed The Animals
cbc.ca/olympics provides you with up to 12 online “channels” where you can watch Olympic events live. This is possible thanks to the folks in Television (specifically Web Presentation group), encoding software by Digital Rapids called StreamZ, and Akamai.

The Olympic feeds are back hauled by Television to Toronto where they are encoded by the Digital Rapids boxes. They are encoded in Windows Media v8 at 500kbps. This stream is then sent to Akamai for distribution.

In most cases the video you see are raw feeds from the venues. This means that there is no commentary. The only audio you here is ambient sounds from the event.

A lot of people like these feeds as they provide coverage for their sport even if it is not available on television.

Canada Only, Please
Due to licensing restrictions by the IOC, only Canadians are able to view Olympic coverage provided by the CBC. As such, we’ve had to use technology from Akamai to ensure that we follow the rules.

The Akamai method of “geofencing” (as we call it) is more sophisticated than what I described earlier. Multiple methods are used, some of them are:

• Your IP Address. Using a database of known IP blocks and locations.
• Which Akamai DNS server you use. When you look up a host name (like www.cbc.ca) you hit a specific Akamai DNS server. Akamai knows which DNS server is in which country and uses that information to figure out what country you’re in.
  BGP Metrics. In a nutshell, Akamai looks at what other servers/routers you go through to get to the stream. If those are in the country Akamai thinks you’re in, then the confidence level goes up.
• Timezones. Using a piece of javascript on the client side. We figure out what timezone your clock is set to. If it matches with one of the timezones in the country Akamai thinks you’re in, confidence level goes up.
• We have people who watch you.

The methods listed above, plus a bunch of others combine to give a Country accuracy level of 99%.

Trends
Because of the twelve hour difference (in the Eastern Time Zone) quite a few of the events happen late at night and early the next morning.

The above graph shows the number of people watching the streams over the past seven days. The majority of the watching happens between 8pm and 12am EDT, and 6am and 12pm EDT.

Some days are more popular than others (like August 14, versus August 16). The little red arrow you see on August 19, at around 12pm EDT is when the most users were watching the streams ever.

I suspect that the closing ceremonies will generate the most streaming traffic during the Olympics.

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	CBC.ca web site, Specials, Under the Hood	Posted at 2:11 pm (20 Aug 2008)

Jonathan Dube, director of CBC’s digital media, will leave the CBC Monday to return to ABCNews.com after a three-year stint here.

Dube joined CBC in 2005 as Editorial Director for CBC.ca, responsible for overseeing editorial content and staff. Last year, he took on the role of integrating CBC News across all digital media platforms.

“Under his leadership, the site has more than doubled its traffic,” said Todd Spencer, executive director of news content for CBC News, “[Making it] the top rated Canadian news site in both unique visits and quality of news coverage.”

Since joining CBC’s online team, Dube launched commenting on all news and sports stories and the incorporation of user-generated content into the site, expanded the news site to include new sections on technology, consumer life, diversions, visitor feedback and revamped money and health sections. As a result, the amount of daily content published on the site has more than doubled, and the length of user visits has significantly increased.

At ABCNews.com, he will help steer strategic planning, business strategy, editorial content and production. He has also worked MSNBC.com.

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	CBC.ca web site, Executives	Posted at 2:56 pm (19 Aug 2008)

As many of you noticed, the CBC.ca web site was down a good chuck of yesterday. A scaled-down version of the site was in its place from 9:30 a.m. ET until the early evening. Turns out, the reason was a major data storage “fallover” involving all redundancy systems. Ouch.

Computers aren’t perfect. Sometimes they crash. Unfortunately, when they crash on highly trafficked web sites, a lot of people notice.

“What you couldn’t see was that the CBCNews.ca staff continued to write and update dozens more stories all day long behind the scenes,” Jonathan Dube of CBC News’ director of digital media told me. “[They did] extra work to enter the stories into two publishing systems, because we wanted to make sure that as soon as the site came back up, it was completely up-to-date — and that’s exactly what happened.”

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	CBC.ca web site	Posted at 10:45 am (30 May 2008)

Every so often, the Internet community (at least the Twitterati circles in which I travel) get hooked on a topic for a day and send around thoughts back and forth. Most of us are just talking out of our, er, sockets, but at least it’s a step up from the previous Internet chat room discussions (”You suck!” “No, YOU suck!”)

Today, it seems to be a discussion around big media companies still using old rules to play in new media. TechCrunch, an influential technology news blog, has an article up today called Old Media Still Needs to Get Over Its Control Issues. While the article focuses mostly on giving people a place to comment (which CBCnews.ca does far better than any of its competitors), it reminded me that the legalese “Terms of Use” text on the CBC web site hasn’t really caught up.

What It Says

If you send anything into the CBC — whether it’s a comment, a video submission, a photo of a breaking news event — you have to agree to give up some things.

From the CBC’s Terms of Use on its web site (emphasis and paragraph breaks added):

By posting or uploading Submissions to the Web site, you grant CBC/Radio Canada a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, unrestricted, worldwide license to use, reproduce, store, adapt, translate, modify, make derivative works from, transmit, distribute, publicly perform or display such Submissions for any purpose; and

to sublicense to third parties the unrestricted right to exercise any of the foregoing rights.

In addition to the grant of the above license, you hereby (i) agree to waive all moral rights in any Submission in favour of CBC/Radio Canada….

The image on the right highlights where this text exists in the Terms of Use. It’s just a part of a big document. Let’s look at what this portion means in detail:

What It Means

Right To Use:
The first part, admittedly, is pretty standard. When you submit content, nearly all media companies want the right to put it on any of their platforms (ugh, I said “platforms”) as that they please.

It could be worse. CanWest Global’s 2004 contract with freelancers said this:

CanWest shall have the right to exclusively use and exploit the Content in any manner and in any and all media, whether now known or hereafter devised, throughout the universe, in perpetuity….

Really. “Throughout the Universe.” That’s what it said. [Enter William Shatner, stage left.]

In an ideal world, media organizations would have a large database that tracked public submissions and their use on-air/online. This would let media groups be more fair in their use of the content — they could, at the least, send a courtesy email to the contributor telling them where/when their content will air. (In fact, this database exists for freelance producers, musicians, actors, and other folks who contribute material and are paid for each airing.)

However, the amount of time, labour, and database costs it would take to track each submission would be off the scale and this small benefit probably isn’t worth the cost to taxpayers to provide it.

Sublicencing:
I have a major stick up my butt about this one. If I send a photo or short video of a breaking news event to the CBC web site for the CBC to use freely on air and/or online, that’s one thing. But I certainly would feel cheated if the CBC turns around and resells the content to, say, CNN! (The Terms don’t specifically say any money would change hands, but there’s nothing that says it can’t.) Shouldn’t I get at least a cut, if not a say in the matter?

Moral rights:
Moral rights does not mean that you are giving up your copyright. It’s a legal term that’s not explained in the document. Essentially, by waiving those rights, you can no longer “object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which would be prejudicial to [your] honor or reputation.” [Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Work]

WTF?!

To be clear, if you waive those rights — which you do as soon as you submit anything to the CBC — the CBC can do what it wants with it, regardless of how it might affect your reputation.

Some might argue, in fact, that the CBC is in violation of section 14.1(2) of Canada’s Copyright Act by asking you to waive your rights “in favour of CBC.” In the Act, it says that “moral rights may not be assigned but may be waived in whole or in part.” I’m not a lawyer, but to me waiving my rights is waiving them. Kissing them goodbye. But if I waive my rights “in favour of the CBC,” it sure sounds like I’m specifically assigning those rights to the Mothercorp, which would be a clear violation of the Act.

I’ve asked the CBC law department for its interpretation of how “moral rights” are used in practice.

How We Should Fix It

I’d like to give the CBC the benefit of the doubt here and assume that the text simply hasn’t caught up with the realities of new media, citizen journalism, or online audience submission. But my gut tells me this document reads exactly how CBC wants it to read.

And to be fair, the lawyers are not at fault. I know several of the CBC’s lawyers and they’re helpful, ethical, and smart people. But let’s face it; their job is to protect as much of the CBC as it can and that includes getting as much in contracts as possible.

So why can’t we at least have a simple human-readable terms of use? Hell, even the behemoth Microsoft has one. Posting a human-version doesn’t mean we can’t have the legal-version as a prominent link, such as “This is only a simplified version of our Terms of Use. For full details about your rights, read our Compete Terms of Use here.”

We can still make it make sense, even if we stick to our guns on the rights we want. Here’s how I’d write the above:

By posting or sending content to the CBC, you let us use it for free on any of our networks, stations, or online properties.

You also agree to let us make changes to your content and re-use at our discretion, even if you object to how it’s been changed.

Also, you agree that we can sell, licence, or give away your submission to any third party such as another broadcaster or publication.

You won’t be paid for this content or any third-party use, but you will continue to own the copyright, so you can use it elsewhere if you want.

Would it be that hard to be up front and clear about the rights we’re asking for when people send us content?

As Dennis Miller would say: “That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.”

What do you think?

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	CBC.ca web site, Legal	Posted at 2:13 pm (26 May 2008)

You may have noticed a few changes to CBCnews.ca…

New importance given to commenting and opinion sections. Comments have been flying in like crazy since they flipped the switch, and it seems readers are loving it.

Other important changes include:

Commented Tab
This tab at the top allows you to sort stories by most commented; if you have a penchant for reading comments, or want an accurate predictor of what the water cooler convo will be like tomorrow, this is a great option.

Recommended Tab
This tab sorts the stories by most recommended by readers.

Audio And Video Browser
There is now an audio and video browser at the top right of the page which allows viewers easy access to video and audio of stories, a handy step up from before when videos were just embedded randomly throughout the site. Now viewers can have a video running at the same time that they are scanning news from the rest of the site.

Your Voice
This section is now front and centre on the front page of the news site.

Reader Comments Featured on Right Sidebar/Your View
“Your View” is getting more play now as well with a big widget on the sidebar featuring scrollable reader comments.

Recommendation Icons
Icons are now embedded throughout and beside each story in order to make it easer for readers to recommend them.

Fresher Design
The overall design has been tweaked to make it a little fresher, a little crisper, and a little less busy.

What do you think of the changes?

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	CBC.ca web site	Posted at 12:03 pm (22 May 2008)

Easy come, easy go.

After all of the happy stories in the last little while about the CBC website being unblocked in China, a CBC employee was not amused to learn that the Radio-Canada site has now been blocked in China again.

Cedric Sam, an Internet Analyst for Radio-Canada, posted an article about this on his own blog in French. Here is a translated summary of the article:

“For six months, the website of Radio-Canada was blocked to internet users in Continental China. A week after Hubert Lacroix sent a letter to the Chinese Ambassador regarding this situation, the Chinese were allowed to view Radio-Canada.ca and CBC.ca.

“While on a trip in the Chinese province of Guangdong, I noticed that while in Shenzhen Radio-Canada.ca was not accessible. A “server not responding” message appeared when I tried to access both the portal site and the news site, while CBC.ca was accessible.

“Two friends in Beijing confirmed with me the next morning that the Radio-Canada website was not available there either.”

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	CBC.ca web site, Other Internet, Radio-Canada	Posted at 1:52 pm (09 May 2008)

What’s that weird Facebook thing on the left hand sidebar on cbc.ca? And why is it taking up so much real estate on the screen?

The web gurus over at cbc.ca have seen the future, and it is Facebook, or Crackbook as most of us know it. The application is called Seen This? and by adding it you get a news feed on your Facebook profile that looks like the image on the right.

If you add it off of the CBC site, and not from within Facebook itself, you will get CBC content. You can choose to add other news agencies if you wish, but why would you. Really.

Now you can access your news headlines from your Facebook profile, meaning you never have to leave Facebook unless you are interested in a story. At which point, CBC.CA web gods have smartly ensured that you end up on their site.

Facebook has moved in a few short months from an idle curiosity to our main method of communication. Now in addition to e-mail, there are Facebook messages. Facebook has also just added a chat program to ensure that your convos don’t leave the site either. Our Facebook pages have become what our e-mail used to be before it got all filled up with spam and work. Seen This? gets so much real estate on the site because the site producers know how much eyeball time Facebook is getting among web users.

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	CBC.ca web site	Posted at 1:13 pm (30 Apr 2008)

CBCNews.ca is a finalist in three categories for the EPpy [sic] Awards, one of the biggest international digital journalism awards. Most impressively, it’s a finalist for the big award, the Best Overall News Site category — along with The New York Times, MSNBC.com, Slate.com, and BBC News (last year’s winner). That means the judges consider CBCNews.ca one of the top five news sites in the world. CBC is also in the running for Best Overall Radio-Affiliated Web Site, and Best Use of Video in a Web Site for the Archives site. The awards are run by Editor & Publisher and Mediaweek, who will announce the winners next month.

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	Asides, Awards, CBC.ca web site	Posted at 9:56 pm (25 Apr 2008)

You may have noticed that last week, CBC.ca quietly added two new features to their news stories: reader comments and recommendations.

Readers can now post comments at the end of every news story. In addition, every reader posting comments will get a personal profile page that displays all of the comments he or she has posted on our site.

When you read a story you like, you can now click a “Recommend” checkmark on that piece. This will help editors highlight the stories on our site that readers collectively find the most interesting.

Finally, the site now sports a wider, easier-to-read story page design. Coming soon: An improved CBCNews.ca front page that includes lists of the Most Recommended and Most Commented news stories.

What do you think of the improvements?

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	CBC.ca web site	Posted at 2:46 pm (10 Mar 2008)

I’m watching with interest our coverage on CBC newsworld of the Air Canada incident in Calgary.

I notice that hours after the story broke, we were still displaying the Breaking News banner on our coverage — even when no new information was available and all we were doing was resetting the story at the top and bottom of the clocks.

Compare that to cbcnews.ca which has moved on from Breaking News to Developing Story — a slug that seems more accurate.

Back in the day, “breaking news” meant literally that — we had JUST broke into our regular programming to bring people urgent information. Nowadays, especially on the American cable news networks, that “breaking news” banner can last all day on the same story.

Have we lost touch with what Breaking News means? Or do you think it’s a good idea to leave that slug there on important stories?

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	CBC Newsworld, CBC.ca web site, News & Journalism	Posted at 1:05 pm (10 Jan 2008)

You may have noticed a new link on the CBC.ca top navigation bar — Your Voice has soft-launched. It’s sort of an amalgamation of readers’ comments, uploaded photos, and links to CBC blogs.

Once you’ve visited and poked around, let us know what you think.

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	CBC.ca web site	Posted at 1:43 pm (03 Jan 2008)

CBC.ca’s banner ads are dropped on the page by a database, not a human. Sometimes, I think the computer should have been mandated to the internal Respect workshops.

Hat tip to Truro NS web designer Daniel MacDonald who spotted this and took a screenshot.

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	Bloopers, CBC.ca web site	Posted at 1:15 pm (03 Jan 2008)