The background is outlined by Keith Anderson in the Guardian PDA.

In 2007 the company behind the Telegraph’s previous closed propriety blogging system went into receivership, leaving the client somewhat up the creek.

Needless to say, this is not a situation that would apply to WordPress, with many individuals and companies across the country available to support the platform, one of which, InterConnect IT, contributed to developing the Telegraph system.

Dave Coveney, of InterConnect IT, is scheduled to speak at this year’s WordCamp UK.

The schedule is looking good.

If you’re going to Open Tech 2009, I’ll see you there!

The availability of discount tickets for WordCamp UK 2009 ends at midday (UK time) on Monday 1 June 2009.

At this time the ticket price increases from £25 to £35.

The current draft of the running order shows the range of sessions over the two day event in Cardiff, which include the involvement of:

• WordPress founding developers Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little.
• Public sector WordPress consultant Simon Dickson.
• Web designer and developer Simon Wheatley on integrating WordPress MU, BuddyPress and bbPress.
• WordHack with public sector digital enabler Dave Briggs.
• Nick Garner talking about tools, tips and tricks to get more site traffic.

The running order is subject to change, with any available slots at the opening of WordCamp UK being filled by attendees using a BarCamp grid.

I’m proud to be co-ordinating the event again, ably assisted by subscribers to the WordCamp UK mailing list.

For further details see the WordCamp UK 2009 blog.

Update Monday 1 June 2009 at 1859: Due to the ticket site being unavailable earlier today, the sale of £25 discount WordCamp UK 2009 tickets has been extended to 2359 (UK time) on Tuesday 2 June 2009.

Jenson Button’s immaculate Formula 1 victory from pole this weekend against the glamorous backdrop of Monte Carlo prompts me to look at the BBC coverage.

Monte Carlo is the sixth Formula 1 race covered by the BBC since it gained the TV rights from ITV at the end of the last season.

The Corporation already had the UK radio rights, which, along with the inherited live streaming rights and the red button channels showing practice sessions and alternative race coverage, a true multi-platform service has been provided.

The BBC Formula 1 site has provided the hub for all of the coverage, which, now we’re just over a third of the way through the season, has proved to be of a very high standard.

The coverage was always going to improve on ITV, just by the absence of ad breaks, but with BBC Sport obviously expending a lot more time and effort on scene set items and background material, it has produced one of the most polished sports productions in recent years.

Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, WordPress founding developers, will be at this year’s WordCamp UK in Cardiff on 18-19 July 2009.

WordCamp UK is the informal annual gathering of WordPress publishers, designers and developers based in the United Kingdom.

For the second year I’m coordinating the event organisation on the WordCamp UK mailing list.

The WordCamp UK 2009 blog, built by Simon Wheatley and Laura Kalbag, will be keeping everyone up to date with developments.

Tickets are now on sale (organised by Joe Quinlan) with an early bird discount price of £25 before 1 June 2009.

We’re currently looking for additional sponsorship, with microsponsorship starting at £70.

Spent the weekend of 28-29 March 2009 at the excellent BarCamp London 6 at The Guardian offices in the swish new Kings Place building in London N1.

Here’s some of the sessions I participated in:

• ABC of the new guardian.co.uk – Nik Silver led a session, based on his Inside guardian.co.uk blog posts, looking the Guardian R2 web CMS and its development since the start of the project in 2006 using domain driven design and agile techniques. It was interesting to note the project is ahead of schedule and under budget.
• The guardian.co.uk API – Simon Willison demonstrated the features of the recently released guardian.co.uk Content API and Data Store.
• Making kick arse video navigation – Chris Jackson gave a presentation on the recently launched URIplay, an open media metadata aggregator. It’ll be interesting to see how this develops.
• The challenge of archiving the BBC’s content – Jonathan Tweed outlined preliminary work on bringing the Corporation’s vast archive online, building on the current /programmes and /music architecture.
• What I learnt organising a conference – Dominic Hodgson led a session on his experience of organising Think Visibility.
• The web of data and personal information – A thought provoking session on the semantic web by Mischa Tuffield.

Two days of varied and fascinating sessions, millions of Lego pieces, a great bunch of attendees and crashing overnight after beer and pizza resulted in a great weekend.

• The Cult of Done Manifesto [Bre Pettis] Some interesting advice – however, as one of the comments says, it may not be applicable in all circumstances: “Let me know when you design an airplane, or automobile, or CAT scanner, or fire extinguisher, or elevator, or SCADA system, or microwave oven using this method, so I can be certain never to use it”.
• Designing for your least able user [BBC Radio Labs] Epic post by Micheal Smethurst on “usability, accessibility and search engine optimisation from an information architect’s perspective”. Excellent.
• What is the Open Platform? [guardian.co.uk] Good move by The Guardian: Content API and Data Store.
• Newspapers and thinking the unthinkable [Clay Shirky] What is the future for newspapers?

WordCamp UK 2009 is going to be held at the Future Inn Cardiff on 18 and 19 July 2009.

The decision was taken by the WordCamp UK mailing list following the venue bidding process for this year’s WordCamp UK.

The winning bid for Cardiff was proposed by Hayley Niuserre.

The other proposals were from David Coveney for Liverpool and Jeff Van Campen for London.

Details of how to obtain tickets are expected to be released shortly – in the meantime register your interest on Upcoming.

Amanda Rose (instigator of Twestival) and myself (with my Twestival designer and developer hat on) at the London Twestival 2009, held at Shoreditch Studios on Thursday 12 February 2009.

Many thanks to Steph Bouchet for the picture.

The effect of the recent snow can be seen in the West London Scott household back garden on the afternoon of 2 February 2009.

This is the greatest volume of snow I’ve seen in London since I moved down in the 1980’s – although I’ve seen much more in Manchester!