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Monday, November 13, 2006

BBC's URLs Go Into The West

The start of a great URL... Having worked in the BBC's mammoth New Media department, at times I was involved in ensuring the correct programme website URLs made it to TV trails and programme credits. Often TV people would never see the benefit of doing such a no-brainer as publicising the related website off the back of the programme.

Other times they would add URLs without actually checking those URLs existed. And then there was the joy of trying to get them to stick to the text-book pronunciations and correct display syntax. It was one big roundabout of fun, games and an ongoing battle with old media mentality.

As a result, I'm maybe a bit to sensitive to spotting URLs on BBC programmes and trailers. Which is explains why Saturday night, at the end of Spielberg's latest TV epic - Into The West, I was amazed by what I saw on the end credits. Given all the advertising and the big impact of this series - tiny details like displaying a correct URL should have been easy. The URL being displayed was like so - /intothewest.co.uk.

I've never seen a URL displayed with the slash at the front - initially I didn't think it would even resolve. As I had my laptop up and running (another fun-packed Saturday night) I typed it in to the browser. It actually did resolve, but took me to this an 400 error message page. I tried the www. version as well, that also hit the same 400 error page "FORBIDDEN - You tried to access a document for which you don't have privileges".

I tutted knowingly and typed in bbc.co.uk/intothewest - which unsurprisingly, worked fine. My wife quipped, 'they forgot the bbc bit at the start!' I said 'no, there wouldn't be the co.uk on the end if that was the case.'

Whatever, Monday morning, the site they displayed is still giving an error message (maybe it's a redirect URL?) I can guess what happened, and the truth is it could have easily been fixed with a bit of communication. Whatever happenend, it doesn't look too clever given the high profile of the TV series.

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