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Reliability: Do RSS search results match website's search results?
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Inclusiveness: Does RSS offer non-staff & archived stories (if also come through website search)?
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Key info: Does RSS give headline/summary, date, time, reporter?
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| Timeliness: Are RSS stories as timely as those from website search? |
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Excellent |
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Very Good |
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Acceptable |
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Not Acceptable |
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Overall Score |
Reliability |
Inclusiveness |
Key Info |
Timeliness |
| 3. BBC World Service |
2.75 |
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THE HEADLINES: Three RSS feeds were searched through the Yahoo! Pipes software: World, UK Edition and News Player (for videos). On average, the three RSS feeds returned about a half to three-quarters of “today’s” stories that came through a search on the BBC’s website. The news feeds were more reliable for the secondary news stories (i.e. “Sudan”). The feeds returned most of the major headlines for the larger stories (i.e. “Iraq”), but tended to miss some of the secondary or less-relevant headlines. (For example, it missed stories on Iraq where Iraq was not in the lead.) One could feel fairly confident utilizing the BBC’s RSS feeds for secondary news stories and for the big headlines of major news stories. |
| Other Issues: |
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There were no stories returned on either the BBC website search or on the search through the RSS feeds that were from other news outlets (i.e. Reuters, Associated Press). |
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The website search consistently brought up archived stories that went back about a month. This was particularly true for the multimedia search, displayed as a sidebar on the site. There were some videos for the day, but also a large collection of videos from earlier days and weeks. |
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The focus at the top of the website search was the four latest or most relevant headlines, so for stories with many articles (i.e. Iraq), the feeds would turn up stories not found on the initial site search. |
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The RSS feeds were timely in their delivery of stories, returning many stories that were posted within the previous three hours. |
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Search results for the RSS feeds showed the articles’ headlines/summaries, but other information was only available after clicking through to the full articles. An overview of date, time, author and summary would have been more useful and informative. Most of the website search results, once the top four headlines were passed by, listed a headline/summary and the date the story was posted (that includes the sidebar search for audio and video). |
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The RSS feeds were consistent in what they pulled from the website. When 10-12 consecutive searches were run through the feeds, the results remained the same. |
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The RSS feed for multimedia required either QuickTime or Real Player to actually view the videos. |
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The BBC website search on occasion returned results that were not specifically news stories. For example, timelines of a country’s history which did not include any breaking news or news analysis would often appear on the website search list of stories. Those timelines did not appear through the RSS feeds. |
(Leah Cowdrey and Nikkee Porcaro) |
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| About the BBC World Service |
| Circulation/Audience |
| 163 million |
| Online Access |
| No log-in needed. |
| Parent Company |
| The British Broadcasting Company http://www.bbc.co.uk/ |
| Other Relevant Ownership and Interests |
-ESPN http://www.espn.com
-Buena Vista Television http://bventertainment.go.com/
-10 Television and 72 Radio Stations http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/overview.html
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| Parent Company Revenue |
| £7.1 billion operating budget |
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