The Virtual Revolution
Encyclopedia
The Virtual Revolution is a British
television documentary
series presented by Aleks Krotoski
, which began airing on BBC Two
on 30 January 2010. A co-production between the BBC
and the Open University
, the series looks at the impact the World Wide Web
has had since its inception 20 years ago. The series took a different approach to BBC documentary making by encouraging an open and collaborative production.
has had on society over its first 20 years. Technology journalist and academic Aleks Krotoski
would present. The series was launched with an event at the BBC to mark the twentieth anniversary of the World Wide Web, which saw Tim Berners-Lee
(credited with inventing the World Wide Web), Susan Greenfield, Bill Thompson
and Chris Anderson discuss the World Wide Web.
The production team took a different approach to the development of the series, described by series producer Russell Barnes as "radical" and "open-source": "We don't just want to observe bloggers from on high; we want to blog ourselves and get feedback and comment on our ideas." He described the four phases the production would take; firstly conducting interviews and inviting comments from users on the programme's blog, the second would see rushes
released for other to re-use under a permissive licence, thirdly, web users would be engaged, working with the Web Science Research Initiative, and the fourth would be an online, interactive version of the series available after it has finished.
The programme team interviewed a number of people who have played a part in the development of the web, including its inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee
and founders of notable brands; Bill Gates
(Microsoft
), Steve Wozniak
(Apple), Chad Hurley
(YouTube
), Jimmy Wales
(Wikipedia
), Stewart Brand
(The WELL
), Biz Stone
and Evan Williams
(Twitter
), Peter Thiel
(PayPal
) and Martha Lane Fox
(lastminute.com
). Academics, including Terry Winograd
, Sherry Turkle
, A. C. Grayling
, David Runciman
, Ross Anderson and Nigel Shadbolt
, commentators, including David Weinberger
, Lee Siegel, Douglas Rushkoff
, Andrew Keen
and Stephen Fry
, and Estonian President
Toomas Ilves
were also interviewed. Footage of the interviews was also made available on the programme's website.
In October 2009 and while being interviewed for the series, Stephen Fry made a request on Twitter
for people to suggest names for the series, with the final decision being made by the BBC. The chosen title, The Virtual Revolution, is described by the producers as "a mashup between us and you".
In reviewing the first episode, Tom Sutcliffe
in The Independent
, "glad" the programme contained the "odd sceptic too", said Krotoski was a "fine presenter" that the series was both "premature and overdue":
For The Times
, Andrew Billen gave the first episode three out of five, saying that Krotoski "offered paradox and dialectic before reaching her bland conclusion that the web was constantly re-inventing itself". The Guardian
' s Tim Dowling
said that the first episode "made a better fist of it than most" and that "the contributors struck a nice balance between big name cheerleaders and glowering dissenters". He described Krotoski as "convincingly authoritative" but found that "the big picture was sometimes hard to hold in your head" and "the term 'empowering tool' was deployed frequently but without enlightenment". Ryan Lambie for Den of Geek said that "the phrases 'empowering tool' and 'ultimate leveller' are repeated far too many times" and that "the programme's makers apparently assume that the average viewer has never seen or used the Internet in their life", but felt Krotoski was "engaging and enthusiastic" as host, however "her constant presence in every other shot is strangely distracting". The Scotsman
' s Paul Whitelaw, who also said the camera was "fixated on Krotoski", felt the first programme was a "disjointed essay which proved fascinating when focusing on the origins of the web, but less so when dealing with more recent and familiar developments".
The series won the 2010 Digital Emmy for Best Digital Program: Non-Fiction and the 2010 BAFTA television award for New Media.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television documentary
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
series presented by Aleks Krotoski
Aleks Krotoski
Aleksandra K. "Aleks" Krotoski is an American broadcaster and journalist, currently based in the UK, who writes about technology and interactivity. She presents The Guardian podcast Tech Weekly and contributes to guardian.co.uk...
, which began airing on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
on 30 January 2010. A co-production between the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
and the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
, the series looks at the impact the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
has had since its inception 20 years ago. The series took a different approach to BBC documentary making by encouraging an open and collaborative production.
Production
The series was announced on 10 July 2009, under the working title of Digital Revolution, to examine the impact the World Wide WebWorld Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
has had on society over its first 20 years. Technology journalist and academic Aleks Krotoski
Aleks Krotoski
Aleksandra K. "Aleks" Krotoski is an American broadcaster and journalist, currently based in the UK, who writes about technology and interactivity. She presents The Guardian podcast Tech Weekly and contributes to guardian.co.uk...
would present. The series was launched with an event at the BBC to mark the twentieth anniversary of the World Wide Web, which saw Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
(credited with inventing the World Wide Web), Susan Greenfield, Bill Thompson
Bill Thompson (technology writer)
Bill Thompson is an English technology writer, best known for his weekly column in the Technology section of BBC News Online and his appearances on Click, a radio show on the BBC World Service. He is also an Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow at City University London .Born in Jarrow, Thompson grew...
and Chris Anderson discuss the World Wide Web.
The production team took a different approach to the development of the series, described by series producer Russell Barnes as "radical" and "open-source": "We don't just want to observe bloggers from on high; we want to blog ourselves and get feedback and comment on our ideas." He described the four phases the production would take; firstly conducting interviews and inviting comments from users on the programme's blog, the second would see rushes
Dailies
Dailies, in filmmaking, are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. They are so called because usually at the end of each day, that day's footage is developed, synched to sound, and printed on film in a batch for viewing the next day by the director and some members...
released for other to re-use under a permissive licence, thirdly, web users would be engaged, working with the Web Science Research Initiative, and the fourth would be an online, interactive version of the series available after it has finished.
The programme team interviewed a number of people who have played a part in the development of the web, including its inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
and founders of notable brands; Bill Gates
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
(Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
), Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer, Co. with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne...
(Apple), Chad Hurley
Chad Hurley
Chad Meredith Hurley is an American co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer of the popular video sharing website YouTube. In June 2006, he was voted 28th on Business 2.0's "50 People Who Matter Now" list...
(YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
), Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
(Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
), Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand is an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. He founded a number of organizations including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation...
(The WELL
The Well
- Titled works :* The Well , 1986 novel by Elizabeth JolleyMusical albums:* The Well , by Waking Ashland* The Well, 2001, by Jennifer Warnes* The Well, a song from the "Come to the Well" album by christian group Casting Crowns...
), Biz Stone
Biz Stone
Christopher Isaac "Biz" Stone is a co-founder and Creative Director of Twitter, Inc and also helped to create and launch Xanga, Blogger, Odeo, and , founded in June 2011 with his long time collaborators Evan Williams and Jason Goldman to focus on building systems that help people work together to...
and Evan Williams
Evan Williams (blogger)
Evan Williams is an American entrepreneur who has founded several Internet companies. Two of the internet's top ten websites have been created by Evan Williams' companies: Blogger, weblog-authoring software of Pyra Labs, and Twitter, where he was previously CEO.-Early life and education:Williams...
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
), Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel
Peter Andreas Thiel is an American business magnate, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager. With Elon Musk and Max Levchin, Thiel co-founded PayPal and was its CEO...
(PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
) and Martha Lane Fox
Martha Lane Fox
Martha Lane Fox is an English businesswoman and charity trustee, who has been engaged as a public servant chairperson on various e-commerce projects and investigations...
(lastminute.com
Lastminute.com
lastminute.com is an online travel and leisure retailer. The company was founded by Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman in 1998 and became an icon of the UK internet boom of the late 1990s, floating at the peak of the dot com bubble and trading on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol...
). Academics, including Terry Winograd
Terry Winograd
Terry Allen Winograd is an American professor of computer science at Stanford University, and co-director of the Stanford Human-Computer Interaction Group...
, Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a sociologist...
, A. C. Grayling
A. C. Grayling
Anthony Clifford Grayling is a British philosopher. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, a private undergraduate college in London. Until June 2011, he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught from 1991...
, David Runciman
David Runciman
The Hon. David Walter Runciman is a British political scientist who teaches political theory at Cambridge University and is a fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was educated following Eton College....
, Ross Anderson and Nigel Shadbolt
Nigel Shadbolt
Nigel Richard Shadbolt FREng CEng CITP FBCS is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.Nigel Shadbolt was born in London. He studied for an undergraduate degree in philosophy and psychology at Newcastle University. His PhD was from the Department of...
, commentators, including David Weinberger
David Weinberger
David Weinberger is an American technologist, professional speaker, and commentator, probably best known as co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto David Weinberger (born 1950 in New York) is an American technologist, professional speaker, and commentator, probably best known as co-author of the...
, Lee Siegel, Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture, and his advocacy of open source solutions to social problems.Rushkoff is most frequently regarded as a media...
, Andrew Keen
Andrew Keen
Andrew Keen is a British-American entrepreneur and author. He is particularly known for his view that the current Internet culture and the Web 2.0 trend may be debasing culture, an opinion he shares with Jaron Lanier and Nicholas G. Carr among others...
and Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
, and Estonian President
President of Estonia
The President of the Republic is the head of state of the Republic of Estonia.Estonia is a parliamentary republic, therefore President is mainly a symbolic figure and holds no executive power. The President has to suspend his membership in any political party for his term in office...
Toomas Ilves
Toomas Hendrik Ilves
Toomas Hendrik Ilves is the fourth and current President of Estonia. He is a former diplomat and journalist, was the leader of the Social Democratic Party in the 1990s and later a member of the European Parliament...
were also interviewed. Footage of the interviews was also made available on the programme's website.
In October 2009 and while being interviewed for the series, Stephen Fry made a request on Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
for people to suggest names for the series, with the final decision being made by the BBC. The chosen title, The Virtual Revolution, is described by the producers as "a mashup between us and you".
Episodes
| # | Title | Directed by | Original airdate | Viewers (overnight estimates) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Reception
Overnight estimates indicated that 1.2 million people watched the first episode, a 5% audience share.In reviewing the first episode, Tom Sutcliffe
Tom Sutcliffe (broadcaster)
Thomas Sutcliffe is a British journalist and arts broadcaster.Sutcliffe studied English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge...
in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, "glad" the programme contained the "odd sceptic too", said Krotoski was a "fine presenter" that the series was both "premature and overdue":
Premature because when you're in the middle of a forest fire you can have no sensible idea of how it will eventually burn out. Overdue, because the flames have been raging for 15 years now and it's excellent that the BBC is at last sticking a dampened finger in the air to see which direction the wind is blowing.
For The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, Andrew Billen gave the first episode three out of five, saying that Krotoski "offered paradox and dialectic before reaching her bland conclusion that the web was constantly re-inventing itself". The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
Tim Dowling
Tim Dowling is a journalist and author. Dowling moved to the UK at the age of 27 and currently lives in London with his wife and three children....
said that the first episode "made a better fist of it than most" and that "the contributors struck a nice balance between big name cheerleaders and glowering dissenters". He described Krotoski as "convincingly authoritative" but found that "the big picture was sometimes hard to hold in your head" and "the term 'empowering tool' was deployed frequently but without enlightenment". Ryan Lambie for Den of Geek said that "the phrases 'empowering tool' and 'ultimate leveller' are repeated far too many times" and that "the programme's makers apparently assume that the average viewer has never seen or used the Internet in their life", but felt Krotoski was "engaging and enthusiastic" as host, however "her constant presence in every other shot is strangely distracting". The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
The series won the 2010 Digital Emmy for Best Digital Program: Non-Fiction and the 2010 BAFTA television award for New Media.
See also
- HyperlandHyperlandHyperland is a 50-minute long documentary film about hypertext and surrounding technologies. It was written by Douglas Adams and produced and directed by Max Whitby for BBC Two in 1990...
– 1990 BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary written and presented by Douglas AdamsDouglas AdamsDouglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
, which foreshadowed many aspects of the modern internet.
External links
- The Virtual Revolution at the Open UniversityOpen UniversityThe Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
- A video interview of Austin Heap by Aleks Krotoski at The Guardian OnlineThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...