1 nomination from readers

• Two reasons:

  1. mySociety have created an innovative way of crowd-sourcing the effort needed to timestamp every speech in Hansard against the appropriate video clip. This new approach to timestamping of video clips will have great applicability beyond the UK parliament.

  2. The new online video will open up coverage of debates in the House of Commons to a much wider audience. Video coverage of Commons debates is now available, on demand and in perpetuity, to anyone in the world with an Internet connection - not just people who watch BBC Parliament or those who can turn up to Westminster in person. Because these video clips are in Flash format (like YouTube) they can be embedded on other websites. MPs will be able to dislay video clips of recent appearances on their own website, while bloggers and other writers will be able to include clips of topical or historically significant debates alongside their written commentary.

  Nominated by Etienne Pollard, 01 June 2008