The 'world's first' streaming of a village cricket match took its place in internet folklore today with thousands tuning in to the #twicket.
Complete with an appearance from a 15 foot scarecrow and the issuing of yellow cards more usually associated with football, the cricket match from Wray in Lancashire was broadcast across as far afield as America and Australia.
Organiser John Popham, who first came up with the plan to highlight the need for faster rural broadband provision just a few week ago, told me: "It worked better than my wildest expectations both in terms of viewers and the technology. The BBC even came along – I think they might be a bit worried!"
At its height the match attracted more than 2,300 live viewers – and succeeded in making a local woman who stepped in to be commentator, Brenda Mickle, into an immediate online star with her observations about players as she sipped her Pimms.
Popham now hopes to use other live events as part of the campaign to highlight the need for fast upload speeds to enable people to share content more easily.
Almost all broadband provision in the UK is "asymmetric" - meaning that download speeds are far greater than upload speeds. Studies in Australia have found that symmetrical upload and download speeds leads to more creativity among users, while asymmetric connections creates a "consumer culture". The UK government has repeatedly said that it wants the UK to be a leader in content creation, but there is little sign that it has taken in the importance of symmetric broadband in achieving this goal.
Future events could well prove more difficult to achieve - Wray was chosen because, thanks to a network installed by Lancaster University, it is one of only three villages in the UK to have a symmetrical community network.
"It's going to be hard to live up to this, to do it again to this standard," Popham said.
The livestream was managed by Birmingham company Aquila which used basic camera equipment (two Sony Z1 cameras and and a DSR 350) with microphones on the boundary and at the commentary.
There was also an audio only stream brovided by Radio Youthology with iPhone and Android apps.
The hash tag #twicket started trending on Twitter shortly before the end of the match.
Comments
25 April 2011 5:22PM
It says a lot that thanks to my village internet i can hardly watch the embedded clip.
25 April 2011 5:24PM
More power to their elbow! Creative protest!
Large numbers of people in the country and indeed in some towns are deprived of access to educational, social, commercial and entertainment opportunities simply by virtue of their random geographical relationship to a local exchange. Its bad for everybody in the economy because every trader everywhere is hampered in reaching rural customers - who are precisely the sort of people who buy things on-line, because there are few shops in the country.
Governments of both stripe mouth off about the problem every now and again, makes big promises, but deliver nothing.
BT are no better. I had to fight tooth and nail to get a measly .5Mgb max download and .1 upload connection (still not enought to deliver live video) and only succeeded eventually because my MP was prepared to put me through to the chief Exec's dept. of BT.
BT's customer service dept. is merely an incompetent device put there to insulate management from its subscribers.
Individual customers are below its pixel size.
My message to other sufferers is - get your collective or individual case on to the desk of BT's Chief Exec. via your MP.
25 April 2011 6:32PM
I think the final score was 2700 viewers. And there is an archive of it all at http://twicket.info if anyone wants to see the streaking scarecrow or the tug of war as well as the breakdancing billy... What a fantastic day, many thanks to everyone who helped, too many to mention, and to all the viewers. This is a good interview streamed by an iphone earlier today: http://bambuser.com/channel/Fibrethedog/broadcast/1605851
where one of the players explains to the BBC what village cricket means to him.
Its all about community, big society in action, and we could see more of it if other places had symmetrical broadband. Wray is very lucky. We are a very lucky little village in the final third. All villages like us need connectivity. And not through crap copper. Wray could only do this because of the fibre brought into the village for the P2Pnext research project by Lancaster University. Even towns and cities can't do what we did today. Heaven help the olympics.
chris
25 April 2011 6:36PM
It should be remembered that BT and the main telecoms union both lobbied the Thatcher government to allow the "glassing" of the UK many years ago. A fibre-optic cable into each and every home in the land would have placed the UK at the cutting edge of digital technology, made almost unbelievable speeds and circuitry available and given us a ten year lead on the rest of the world.
Can't be done when the short-term aims and corrupt selling of a national resource get in the way of common sense. The current bunch are no better and Nu-Lab were just as bad. No vision, no ambition apart from nest-feathering and not a whiff of competence.
I am fine here in my little rural town within a V I Richards cricket shot of the exchange but a mere mile or two out and you would be stuffed, and that is where the SME's creating desperately needed jobs and income are located. Makes yer weep!
25 April 2011 6:53PM
Beside the point, but what shame that the match was possibly the worst standard of cricket I've ever seen played.
25 April 2011 7:06PM
How wonderful! This is a side of the 'net that we all too often forget - the process of democratisation. Earlier today, I was watching footage of an eagle on its nest, coming live from a webcam that has been erected close enough to be able to see the action. Perhaps a little sedentary, but with all the experience of being dragged around birdwatching with my wife, and climbing trees as a child, I have never managed to see this sort of thing!
Regardless of the quality of the cricket, absent friends and family will have been able to enjoy it, as will people who may have little experience of this aspect of life in some villages. And in addition, this will be available for looking back on in the future.
Very much to be recommended!
25 April 2011 7:14PM
Good! The more cricket the better - good or not as the play might be.
Thankfully it's world away from that ruckus called soccer or football or whatever....
25 April 2011 7:48PM
I've cited this article in the Wikipedia article which I've written, about the event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twicket and which has additional background material which may interest your readers.
26 April 2011 9:42AM
Thanks all for the comments and the great links - making this page a useful resource :)
26 April 2011 10:18AM
http://tinyurl.com/6aj2ob2 see the breakdancing kid here #Twicket Adam Mitchell son of @bpoolteacher another livestream from the field yesterday. The one shoe routine was a new one. Adam's dad had to call time or he wouldn't have stopped performing. What a kid. We got some lovely visitors in the village, and the scarecrow festival continues every day until May Day monday. The big parade is on Friday night, and lots more info about the village on www.wrayvillage.co.uk
26 April 2011 1:10PM
#twicket RT @gabysslave The fellas from @radioyouthology @ Wray Cricket Field http://instagr.am/p/DifwK/