Twicket
Encyclopedia
Twicket was a village cricket
match, streamed world-wide on the Internet on Easter Monday, 25 April 2011, with the intention of highlighting the need for high-capacity upstream broadband to enable community content provision. This innovative exercise—claimed to be a world first—caught media attention, making BBC television news, BBC Radio London, TalkSport
, Radio New Zealand
; and being written about by The Guardian
,, The Observer
and Metro and mentioned on Twitter
by Stephen Fry
, the BBC
's Rory Cellan-Jones
and Jonathan Agnew
(BBC cricket correspondent).
connection, recently installed by Lancaster University
in her village, Wray
, in Lancashire, England, one of only three villages in the UK to have a symmetrical community network
.
On learning from Conder that Wray was to hold a special cricket match part of the village’s annual Scarecrow Festival, billed as Wray vs. the Rest of the World, Popham decided to broadcast it to the world to demonstrate the potential of high-speed synchronous broadband. He explained:
per side (the Twenty20
format), with any batsman reaching 20 runs required to retire. Wray won the toss, and elected to bowl first. After 20 overs, The Rest of the World were 69 for 5, leaving Wray needing 70 runs off 20 overs, which they achieved with a final six, in their eleventh over, winning by 8 wickets.
The post-match tug o'war
contest (won by Rest of World, 2 out of 3) was also streamed live, as were interviews with various participants.
with technical support from Birmingham company Aquila TV who used two Sony Z1
cameras and a DSR 350. The stream was watched by a peak of 2,733 viewers. A separate audio commentary was broadcast on-line, by Radio Youthology, also from Birmingham, attracting 1,780 listeners; their highest figure ever.
Also attending were a BBC North West
television news crew, whose film was broadcast the same evening.
The related hashtag #twicket was trending on Twitter shortly before the end of the match.
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
match, streamed world-wide on the Internet on Easter Monday, 25 April 2011, with the intention of highlighting the need for high-capacity upstream broadband to enable community content provision. This innovative exercise—claimed to be a world first—caught media attention, making BBC television news, BBC Radio London, TalkSport
TalkSPORT
Talksport , owned by UTV radio, is one of the United Kingdom's three terrestrial analogue Independent National Radio broadcasters, offering a sports and talk radio service broadcast from London to the United Kingdom....
, Radio New Zealand
Radio New Zealand
Radio New Zealand is a New Zealand public service radio broadcaster and Crown entity formed by the Radio New Zealand Act 1995. It operates news, current affairs and arts network Radio New Zealand National and classical music and jazz network Radio New Zealand Concert with full government funding...
; and being written about by The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
,, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
and Metro and mentioned 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...
by 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...
, 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...
's Rory Cellan-Jones
Rory Cellan-Jones
Nicholas Rory Cellan-Jones is a British journalist for BBC News, specializing in economics and technology. His brother is television director Simon Cellan-Jones.-Education:...
and Jonathan Agnew
Jonathan Agnew
Jonathan Philip Agnew is an English cricket broadcaster and former professional cricketer. He was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire and educated at Uppingham School. He is nicknamed "Aggers", and, less commonly, "Spiro"....
(BBC cricket correspondent).
Background
The event was conceived by consultant John Popham after seeing two comments on Twitter; in the first Dan Slee expressed his hopes for keeping up with a local village cricket team via Twitter. Then, Chris Conder mentioned that she was testing a new 30Mbps, symmetrical internetSymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
Symmetric digital subscriber line can have two meanings:* In the wider sense it is a collection of Internet access technologies based on DSL that offer symmetric bandwidth upstream and downstream...
connection, recently installed by Lancaster University
Lancaster University
Lancaster University, officially The University of Lancaster, is a leading research-intensive British university in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established by Royal Charter in 1964 and initially based in St Leonard's Gate until moving to a purpose-built 300 acre campus at...
in her village, Wray
Wray, Lancashire
Wray is a small village in Lancashire, part of the civil parish of Wray-with-Botton, in the City of Lancaster district. Wray is the point at which the River Roeburn joins the River Hindburn....
, in Lancashire, England, one of only three villages in the UK to have a symmetrical community network
Community network
Community network is a term used broadly to indicate the use of networking technologies by, and for, a local community. Free-nets and civic networks indicate roughly the same range of projects and services, whereas community technology centers and telecentres generally indicate a physical facility...
.
On learning from Conder that Wray was to hold a special cricket match part of the village’s annual Scarecrow Festival, billed as Wray vs. the Rest of the World, Popham decided to broadcast it to the world to demonstrate the potential of high-speed synchronous broadband. He explained:
I'm confident we can do this, because the village Wi-Fi has a 30Mbps upload speed ... It's a bit of fun, but it has a serious purpose too. The serious side is to demonstrate that it can be done, it possible to live broadcast events like this using relatively cheap equipment and a good internet connection. It will also demonstrate the importance of good internet connectivity in rural areas, and the need for fast connections if we are to realise the aspiration to use the internet to enable more people to produce their own content.
The match
The match was 20 oversOver (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, an over is a set of six consecutive balls bowled in succession. An over is normally bowled by a single bowler. However, in the event of injury preventing a bowler from completing an over, it is completed by a teammate....
per side (the Twenty20
Twenty20
Twenty20 is a form of cricket, originally introduced in England for professional inter-county competition by the England and Wales Cricket Board , in 2003. A Twenty20 game involves two teams, each has a single innings, batting for a maximum of 20 overs. Twenty20 cricket is also known as T20 cricket...
format), with any batsman reaching 20 runs required to retire. Wray won the toss, and elected to bowl first. After 20 overs, The Rest of the World were 69 for 5, leaving Wray needing 70 runs off 20 overs, which they achieved with a final six, in their eleventh over, winning by 8 wickets.
The post-match tug o'war
Tug of war
Tug of war, also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war or rope pulling, is a sport that directly pits two teams against each other in a test of strength. The term may also be used as a metaphor to describe a demonstration of brute strength by two opposing groups, such as a rivalry between two...
contest (won by Rest of World, 2 out of 3) was also streamed live, as were interviews with various participants.
Media
The event was streamed online on BambuserBambuser
Bambuser is a Swedish company, founded in 2007, providing an interactive live video broadcasting service, for streaming live video from mobile phones and webcams to the internet. Bambuser's main office is situated in Stockholm, Sweden, and has a branch office in Turku, Finland...
with technical support from Birmingham company Aquila TV who used two Sony Z1
Sony HVR-Z1
The Sony HVR-Z1 is a professional, broadcast quality, HDV camcorder. It has become popular for producers of documentaries and other television programs because of its small size and relatively low cost. It records in 1080i....
cameras and a DSR 350. The stream was watched by a peak of 2,733 viewers. A separate audio commentary was broadcast on-line, by Radio Youthology, also from Birmingham, attracting 1,780 listeners; their highest figure ever.
Also attending were a BBC North West
BBC North West
BBC North West is the BBC English Region serving Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Walsden in West Yorkshire, the Isle of Man , north-west Derbyshire, the Yorkshire Dales including Settle and Ribblesdale, and southern Cumbria.BBC North West television output is also broadcast in...
television news crew, whose film was broadcast the same evening.
The related hashtag #twicket was trending on Twitter shortly before the end of the match.
External links
- Twicket (includes archive of video stream)
- The Story of #Twicket - Popham's post-event round-up.
- #twicket, community, and social capital - a further retrospective by Popham
- Popham interview on BBC Radio Lancaster
- BBC North West news feature on iPlayer - starts 3'45" in.