BBC Vision plans to roll out Shownar, its prototype buzz monitoring site, across the BBC and the wider web.  

Shownar tracks online buzz around BBC TV and radio shows by monitoring in-bound links to programme-related pages on bbc.co.uk and aggregating wider online buzz about BBC shows using data provided by Yahoo’s open search platform Boss, Nielson Online’s BlogPulse and Twingly.

Dan Taylor, senior portfolio executive for internet at BBC Vision, said that although Shownar is still being evaluated the long-term goal is to take the service out to users wherever they are on the web, either via modules or widgets.

“The plan is to weave it across bbc.co.uk,” said Taylor. “So if you’re on the BBC1 website or a music website, it could have a module which would say ‘These are the most buzzed about programmes in this area’.”

At the moment Shownar provides snapshots of buzz around a show, rather than adding up all its buzz over time. It’s currently on a standalone site, but Taylor said the plan is to migrate it onto bbc.co.uk by the end of the year.   

Shownar was officially unveiled by Simon Nelson, controller of multi-platform at BBC Vision, at last week’s event to launch Digital Revolution, a BBC series marking 20 years of the web. It was built by Schulze & Webb.

While Twitter provides the highest volumes of buzz to Shownar, followed by other blogging services, BBC Vision wants to track buzz elsewhere on the web. “One of the next stages of the project is to look at what kind of data sources we can pull in to make it even richer,” said Taylor. “It’s not capturing the full spectrum of converstaion on message boards and forums so it would be great add those in as well.”

Taylor added that, as well adding discovery of BBC TV and radio content, Shownar aims to track both positive and negative feedback. “It’s important to reflect the spectrum of debate that exist around our programmes, rather than just shining a spotlight on the positive comments.”