BW and Waterscape adopt same favicon to highlight their differences

Tiny little things can make a difference. I notice that BW has started using a mini-version of its logo in the web browser address bar.  Interestingly, the logo appears not only the official British Waterways corporate website but also in the consumer spin-off Waterscape site.

(For those who don't know, the little browser icon is a 16x16 picture called the 'favicon', and websites can install their own.  

Granny Buttons has a favicon - it's the little girl who used to be on the packet of Cadbury's Chocolate Buttons (before some wicked old marketing witch cast a spell and made her vanish, back in 1992).   In my favicon little Miss Buttons is wearing an orange dress, but she has a full wardrobe of  other dresses to call on, including red green and blue.

It was a while back when I installed my favicon and I can't remember how I did it!  Can anyone else give an easy guide to creating and installing one's own favicon?)

Where was I?  Oh yes, what with both Waterscape and British Waterways using the same BW 'bridge and bulrush' logo as their favicon,  it set me thinking about the relationship between the two websites.  

The split was presumably introduced to keep the hoi polloi waterways users away from the important developers and businessmen BW want to attract. 

Type 'www.britishwaterways.co.uk' into your browser and you'll have to choose either 'British Waterways' or be sent away to something that's 'not British Waterways'.

I've never felt easy with this.  It seems to me that Waterscape is simply the Provisional Wing of BW, and the fact that it now uses the same web browser favicon just reinforces the point.  Its the same organisation, the same people, just a different set of lip service.

Maybe they are trying to highlight that 'British Waterways' is about the moneymaking, business development side and the bit that actually spends the money and administers the 'leisure and heritage' is for 'users'. 

But it just tells me that Waterscape is the ordinary punter's entrance, the turnstile, the section where they let Joe Soap in.  Waterscape is where you go cap in hand to queue up, to renew your licences, to pay them money, to be fined if you don't do something right.

The main BW website was presumably intended to be the 'tradesmen's entrance', but look closely and you'll see the address is: www.britishwaterways.co.uk/home.  You're left with the impression that it's the front door, the marbled hall, the elegant reception area.

Creating Waterscape as a separate entity didn't make sense to me ten years ago, and it doesn't make sense to me now.  In which area are we 'customers' and where are we suppliers?

Perhaps they got the idea from The National Trust.  See, if you are a bigwig - a politician or a potential developer say - then you go to The National Trust. 

However, if you are just a visitor, you go to Historiscape, the NT website for their ordinary users and members.

Or not.  Whatever, but I notice that the National Trust website doesn't have a favicon.

Update: It's now been pointed out several times that my browser has a glitch - and that ALL of the sites mentioned here has its own favicon. 

No matter - THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT FAVICONS!  It's about my view of the split between BW and Waterscape.   And of a possible parallel with the National Trust, who - it should be noted - run a waterway themselves.

Comments

[Andrew Denny]

Damn, Waterscape is now indeed showing the favicon correctly on Internet Explorer!� And although the National Trust still shows the default IE favicon, it's showing an NT favicon in Safari.� I give up!

�

No, wait;�Seeing the�BW favicon in Waterscape was only the starting point for my post.� I wasn't really writing about favicons, I was writing about the BW/Waterscape split.

�

�

[Andrew Denny]

My observation of the favicons and the digression about them was simply a
maguffin for talking about the Waterscape/bw split. I'm regretting mentioning it now ;-)

Sent from my iPhone

[Martin Clark]

Yes, I think there may be something wrong with your browser, Andrew. When I look at Waterscrape with my Firefox, I see the usual Waterscrape favicon that is located here!

I have been using favicons with each of my websites for a long time and I also have them on my Blogger blogs. As Colin says, there are instructions to be found out there.

When adding a favicon to your site, it is not just a matter of uploading the icon to the root folder - it helps to add a line of code to the headers of each page telling the browser to look for that icon. The NT website has the code, so I don't know why IE can't find it!

[Alan]

The National Trust does have a favicon if you use Firefox. It looks like IE can't cope with it.

[Andrew Denny]

Colin,
Thanks for all the tips!
But, ahem, this is somewhat running away from the original purpose of the post, which was to criticise the BW /waterscape split.

My fault I guess, for the digression, but I figured that not enough people would be aware of favicons and the fact that you can change them.

[Colin]

Well, it seems that it is possible to change the blogspot favicon. I should have carried out a simple search on google before wasting my web ink ;-)
Searching google for 'blogger change favicon' brings a suitable collection of options. Result number 2 by HapiBlogging seems to contain the simplest instructions.

[Colin]

Sorry, I was talking about my own site.

As far as I am aware, a blogspot user is not able to change the favicon from the default "orange square with white B".

As I see it, in order to use ones own favicon, access to your own web server via something like 'ftp' is required.

[Andrew Denny]

Colin,
Thanks, but which site are you talking about ? Would you mind translating the favicon.co.uk instructions into something a blogspot user can understand, for instance?
Thanks
Andrew

[Colin]

I just upload the 'favicon.ico' to the root directory of the site. No folder required.

[Andrew Denny]

Yes, Colin, but the point as I see it is: How do you get the favicon into its position? It ought to be far simpler than favicon.co.uk suggests, and few people will make head or tail of those instructions. I presumably did once, but I've obviously forgotten!

It's all to do with putting the icon in a folder somewhere on your blog, I think, but I forget how.

Andrew

�

[Colin]

Best site I have found for favicon info is http://www.favicon.co.uk/ . Easy to follow instructions and the ability to create from an image on your own computer.