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''The Virtual Revolution'' is a British television documentary series and interactive web experience presented by Aleks Krotoski, which began airing on BBC Two on 30 January 2010. A co-production between the

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and the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

, the series looks at the impact the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through 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.

Production

The series was announced on 10 July 2009, under the working title of ''Digital Revolution'', to examine the impact the

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 Chris Anderson may refer to: Sports * Chris Anderson (baseball) (born 1992), American baseball player * Chris Anderson (cheese roller), 22-time winner of annual cheese rolling * Chris Anderson (footballer, born 1925) (1925–1986), Scottish footb ...

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 others to re-use under a permissive license, thirdly, web users would be engaged, working with the

Web Science Research Initiative Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

, and the fourth would be an online, interactive version of the series available after it has finished. The digital elements were commissioned by Lisa Sargood and produced by Dan Biddle and Dan Gluckmann. 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 Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profes ...

and founders of notable brands;

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

(

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

), Steve Wozniak (

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

), Chad Hurley (

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

), Jimmy Wales (

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

), Stewart Brand (

The WELL The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, normally shortened to The WELL, was launched in 1985. It is one of the oldest continuously operating virtual communities. By 1993 it had 7,000 members, a staff of 12, and gross annual income of $2 million. ...

Biz Stone Christopher Isaac "Biz" Stone (born March 10, 1974) is an American entrepreneur who is a co-founder of Twitter, among other technology companies. Stone was the creative director at Xanga from 1999 to 2001. Stone co-founded Jelly, with Ben Finkel ...

and Evan Williams (

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in F ...

(

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

) and

Martha Lane Fox Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, (born 10 February 1973) is a British businesswoman, philanthropist, and public servant. She co-founded Last Minute during the dotcom boom of the early 2000s and has subsequently served on public ser ...

( lastminute.com). Academics, including

Terry Winograd Terry Allen Winograd (born February 24, 1946) is an American professor of computer science at Stanford University, and co-director of the Stanford Human–Computer Interaction Group. He is known within the philosophy of mind and artificial intel ...

Sherry Turkle Sherry Turkle (born June 18, 1948) is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She obtained an BA in social studies and later a PhD in sociology and perso ...

, A. C. Grayling,

David Runciman David Walter Runciman, 4th Viscount Runciman of Doxford, (born 1 March 1967) is an English academic who teaches politics and history at Cambridge University, where he is Professor of Politics. From October 2014 to October 2018 he was also Head ...

, Ross Anderson and

Nigel Shadbolt Sir Nigel Richard Shadbolt (born 9 April 1956) is Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford. He is Chairman of the Open Data Institute which he co-founded ...

, commentators, including

David Weinberger David Weinberger (born 1950) is an American author, technologist, and speaker. Trained as a philosopher, Weinberger's work focuses on how technology — particularly the internet and machine learning — is changing our ideas, with books about the ...

, Lee Siegel,

Douglas Rushkoff Douglas Mark Rushkoff (born February 18, 1961) 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 sourc ...

Andrew Keen Andrew Keen (born c. 1960Saracevic, Alan T. (15 October 2006)Debate 2.0 / Weighing the merits of the new Webocracy.''San Francisco Chronicle'' ("Age: 46")) is a British-American entrepreneur and author. He is particularly known for his view tha ...

and

Stephen Fry Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...

, and Estonian President

Toomas Ilves Toomas Hendrik Ilves (; born 26 December 1953) is an Estonian politician who served as the fourth president of Estonia from 2006 until 2016. Ilves worked as a diplomat and journalist, and he was the leader of the Social Democratic Party in the ...

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

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

Reception

Overnight estimates indicated that 1.2 million people watched the first episode, a 5% audience share. In reviewing the first episode, Tom Sutcliffe in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'', "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'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'', 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'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'''s

Tim Dowling Robert Timothy Dowling (; born June 1963) is an American journalist and author who writes a weekly column in ''The Guardian'' about his life with his family in London. Career Dowling worked in data entry for a films database before he became a fr ...

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'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

'''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 award for New Media.

References

External links

*
''The Virtual Revolution''
at the

*
A video interview of Austin Heap by Aleks Krotoski
at The Guardian Online {{DEFAULTSORT:Virtual Revolution, The BBC television documentaries Documentary films about the Internet Documentary television series about computing Information Age 2010 British television series debuts 2010 British television series endings English-language television shows

Production

Episodes

Reception

See also

References

External links