You mentioned the issue regards accessibility for screen readers, and degraded performance for mobiles and the like, but that I think is the problem – if standard hyperlinks were used, you wouldn’t see a degraded performance. Even if standard hyperlinks were used and were then replaced by the Apture stuff using javascript, that would be better – those with access to javascript would get the Apture stuff, those without would get it as standard hyperlinks. Is that something which could be looked at?

For me personally, I don’t like the “pop-up-ness” of it, either. I prefer, if I want to read more information, to open the page in a new window or tab. However as I’m a techie, I’m not necessarily a ’standard user’ here which is why this is a preference thing.

One thing you dismiss that I think is a problem is that of security and ‘trusting external sites’. If you read a lot of security stuff (like the Sophos blog, for example), you’ll find that hacked sites tend to have external javascript links inserted in them, so the malicious code is not on the site itself but in an external location. That way, even if that site has been hacked, unless you allow code from another additional site to run, you’re still protected. This is why stuff like the noscript plugin for firefox is great: you choose which sites you want to trust on a case-by-case basis. I don’t think we should dismiss security concerns that easily…

(oh, and as a developer, I do agree that ‘needs javascript’ isn’t necessarily ‘inaccessible’. The problem is it’s usually very difficult to find out exactly which bits of JS are and aren’t well supported by assistive tech…)

The Beeb for considering new startups such as Apture, it’s undoubtedly a great tool & if the external link issue can be resolved somehow…I can’t see many downfalls.

Apture for getting a foot in there – would be intrigued to find out how they approached the bbc with the concept.