Seven Days - a study of sudden celebrity in slo-mo

Finally managed to catch up with Channel 4's new reality TV show, Seven Days, which I'd thought I'd missed (having wrongly inferred from the title that it was stripped across a single week...)

Apart from finding it more engaging than I'd expected, what really struck me whilst watching it was how the nature of the format means it very quickly becomes less a study of regular people and their daily interactions and more a real-time examination of the impact of suddenly becoming a public figure / minor celebrity.

While contestants on other reality formats like Big Brother are well aware that simply taking part in the show will have turned them into overnight celebrities, they are usually shielded from the consequences of that new status (aside from a few overheard boos on eviction night) until they emerge from the experience (whereupon it no doubt hits them like a tidal wave, as they wade their way through the tabloid backlog).

Seven Days is different in exposing the participants to their developing public profile in real-time and letting them choose whether to let that feedback loop moderate their behaviour or not. What's more, it's a cocktail not just of the usual tabloid fare, but also of comments from Joe Public via the moderated ChatNav service and the unmoderated wilds of Twitter.

We're only three weeks in but it's already interesting to see the different participants (I like the fact C4 has hosted their profiles in a /characters directory - hopefully a knowing nod to the inherent artifice of TV portrayals...) respond very differently to the feedback they're receiving. Whilst Susanne appears to be deriving a new found confidence from her feedback (to finally challenge her son to move out), Samantha's feedback has put her in a tail spin about whether she cares what people think of her or not.

Whereas Big Brother was always rich with the reality TV equivalent of dramatic irony, as the participants carried on oblivious both to the public reaction to their actions and to many of the on-camera actions of their housemates, Seven Days affords the participants equal access to the public's perceptions and the broadcast behaviour of the show's other participants (so Hannah will see/hear Ben describe her as a "bronze medal"...)

It's almost like the mirror image of The Truman Show, where complete obliviousness has been switched out for maximum awareness of their daily lives as national spectacle.

As Matt Locke (Acting Head of Crossplatform at Channel 4) acknowledges, the formula's probably not 100% right yet, but it's certainly one of the most ambitious attempts to date to try and harness the differing (and to my mind complimentary) strengths of broadcast and IP to create a genuine feedback loop, with many thousands of viewers also acting as contributors/influencers.

Whilst there's already speculation that the show may not have delivered large enough audiences to secure its future, I'd be intrigued to see how this dynamic evolves in the longer term as the participants' lives become increasingly affected by their new found fame.

Who knows more about me - Tesco or Google?

I like to think of myself as relatively savvy about how data about me is captured and stored. I know that by having (and using) a Tesco Clubcard I am offering up a veritable smorgasbord of valuable data about myself; not only where I live and what I like to eat and drink, but also what newspaper I read and - were I to take Tesco up on their full range of services - what clothes I wear, what car I drive (and when and where I fill it with petrol), what books I read, what DVDs and games I rent, what medication I take, my mobile phone and home broadband usage and even my bank balance and insurance provision. To what extent Tesco (or rather dunnhumby) joins the dots on all of this data is unknown although it's status as poster boy for successful CRM suggests, er, quite a lot.

Google is another company I'm aware knows a fair bit about me, although it wasn't until the launch of Google Dashboard last November, that I realised quite how much. Sure, there's my web search history (although that's possible to pause), but there's also my email, this blog (published using Blogger), my website stats, my online documents, my YouTube viewing, my RSS feed subscriptions, my checkout purchase history and - since I started trying out Google latitude - my location. Sounds a little scary when you put it like that, no?

The quality, convenience and competitive pricing (in Google's case, mostly free) of the products and services offered by both brands is what's keeping them dominant in their expanding (and no doubt soon to be overlapping) sectors. To what extent consumers will start factoring the volume, usage and transparency of personal data collected by these and other companies and how that will weigh against factors such as cost and convenience remains to be seen.

Of course, Tesco and Google aren't the only pretenders to the personal data throne. Through a combination of launches and acquisitions, Yahoo! now has access to my photos, email, bookmarks, conference schedule and - most potently - my social graph. The injection of users' social graph into the data mix is particularly valuable and Facebook is right at the sharp end of the personal data issues this entails, exacerbated by the rapid uptake of Facebook Connect, which is making its walled garden increasingly permeable.

Google Dashboard is a welcome baby-step in providing greater access to and - crucially - control over the personal data Google holds. It will be interesting to see whether Tesco starts moving more in this direction, whether by choice or legislation (clicking 'My Account' on the Tesco Clubcard site today returned the following message: "Sorry but an unexpected error has occured. We are currently trying to resolve the issue. Please try again.")

(Aside: Interesting to note that Tesco has dropped out of this 'Most highly-regarded business brands' ranking - although clearly the opinions of a selection of prominent UK leaders are likely to be very different to regular consumers).

Recent BBC Vision web launches

Quick round-up of some recent BBC Vision web launches which I've had varying degrees of involvement with:

Robin Hood game



Noteworthy primarily for its use of the Unity plug-in which renders Flash-beating in-browser 3D graphics - definitely a technology to watch. Game development by Playgroup and Specialmoves. BBC credits: Marc Ramsay, Richard Lynton-Evans, Paul Thomson and Rosie Allimonos. Trailer embedded below.



Adam Curtis Blog



Peak inside the mind of the legendary documentary film maker (The Power of Nightmares, The Century of Self, The Trap) and find out about his forthcoming collaboration with the Punchdrunk theatre company, It Felt Like a Kiss (see below trail). All I can claim credit for here is the green-on-black retro screen font which I used in a presentation I pulled together for Adam last year. The real props go to Nick Cohen, Roo Reynolds, Cathal Coughlan and Lucy Kelsall.



Comedy Extra



Made-for-the-web comedy clips from a mix of established and up-and-coming talent, including Adam Buxton, Mitchell & Webb, Matt Lucas & David Walliams, Stewart Lee & Armando Iannucci and the don't-try-this-at-home Amazing Wizards. Credit due to Al Boley, Martin Trickey and Will Saunders amongst others.



Remember, you can keep track of all new site launches from BBC Vision at the BBC Vision site launches blog.