I’m here just to pass on a message from Matt Andrews, a member of the Guardian’s digital development team. Later this week, he and his colleagues will be, among other things, trying to dream up ways to make our web-based coverage of cycle events like the Tour de France more informative, interactive and interesting.
At the bottom of the page is a (slightly small) pic of something which another developer, Alastair Jardine, has come up with as an example. It shows how, if you were to click or hover over a specific block of a cycling live blog it would bring up real-time data on rider positions, gaps etc.
But they’re also interested in your ideas. So, over to Matt:
Thursday 2 February marks the first of the Guardian’s quarterly hack days for 2012, a permanent fixture in the calendar for the digital development team in partnership with editorial, commercial and other parts of the Guardian.
At hack days, groups of developers and other interested parties work together to throw together ideas and concepts, often in a very short space of time, with the goal of producing a five minute demo the following day in front of the department.
The best demos go on to be made, theoretically, into complete products and apps. Not every hack ends up being released into the wild or taken on any further from the event, but it’s often a fun time to experiment and play with new, emerging technologies.
This week’s hack day is themed around sport (following last quarter’s travel-themed hack, which we liveblogged here). This theme isn’t rigidly enforced so it’s likely we’ll see some of the now-typical leftfield contributions (robots that can respond to tweets, a DJ turntable allowing users to remix the news), but in general we’re looking at ways we can improve and expand the Guardian’s online sport coverage and tools.
Inside the Guardian’s development team there are quite a few cycling fans. Some of us have grouped together to build something bike-related on the day, whether it’s for the Olympics, the Tour, or any other competitive bike race.
We have a few ideas in the works, many of which are limited by the availability (or lack thereof) of real-time race data, but we’d love to see what readers of the Bike Blog think would be interesting or useful in these contexts.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have a live TV feed when it’s mountain stage day or the final laps of Box Hill in the Olympic road race, so how can the Guardian help you experience the events while you’re at your desk instead? Let us know.
