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On The BBC 2.0

Posted by Zonk on Sat Apr 29, 2006 01:49 PM
from the autie-beeb-gets-new-clothes dept.
Media Programming Television The Internet IT Technology News
novus ordo writes "BBC has been exploring the 'Web 2.0' approach in its future plans 'to keep the BBC relevant in the digital age.' They have also put an experimental catalogue online. 'This will allow you to find out about any of the one million programmes that the BBC holds in its archive, going right back to 1937. It's a window onto an amazing cultural and national resource.' They have also opened up a competition to completely redesign its home page."
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On The BBC 2.0 25 Comments More /

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  • competition rules (Score:5, Funny)

    by tverbeek (457094) on Saturday April 29 2006, @02:13PM (#15228741) Homepage
    "They have also opened up a competition to completely redesign its home page."

    The catch is that they want it to have the same color scheme, font, icons, and certain design elements from the Slashdot home page.

  • There's also the RadioListings web site (Score:3, Informative)

    by Larry Lightbulb (781175) on Saturday April 29 2006, @02:17PM (#15228759) Homepage
    Although the catalogue is a great source of data it needs interpretation, and that's where sites like mine - http://www.radiolistings.co.uk/ [radiolistings.co.uk] - come in.

    I take the data the BBC (and other stations) list, edit it it for readability, and include things like series and episode numbers - things that are essential for any collectors.

    Yes, this is a blatent plug for my site.

  • The BBC's Website (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spectrumCoder (944322) on Saturday April 29 2006, @02:18PM (#15228763) Homepage
    The first and possibly only thing they should change about the BBC home page is the fact that it's designed to be viewed at a resolution of 800x600. Surely a company as big as the BBC is capable of producing a web site that utilizes all of the screen space available in a browser window?
    • Just to play Devil's Advocate here (I'm at 1600x1200), firstly as pointed out by other replies a lot of people don't have screens that are that huge. Secondly, the BBC website is designed to adhere to certain standards of readability, and this involves presenting information in a primarily vertical fashion. People tend to lose track of text that flows over more than around 60 characters per line (cf Latex).

  • BBC on /.'s revamp? (Score:5, Informative)

    by jbn-o (555068) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Saturday April 29 2006, @02:24PM (#15228797) Homepage

    An interesting point from the BBC "Reboot [bbc.co.uk]" Q&A considering /.'s recent webpage redesign contest:

    [...]To kick-off, jay left the following comment on the blog: "What you are really asking for is numerous submissions of what is in essence a $million rebranding. Not a bad exchange for an apple laptop."

    I think it's worth pointing out from the very beginning that we are not asking people to provide million £ rebranding for us. Indeed we are NOT going to use or commission any designs for the final front page. Yes, we will turn the winning design into the homepage for a day - but that's as a prize and as recognition for the winning producer's efforts (and if they really don't want us to, then we won't).

    I would completely agree with jay that we would be ripping people off if we were going to turn entries submitted into the final homepage design. But that's not the objective of this competition.

  • Online archive (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29 2006, @02:29PM (#15228824)
    The French institute called INA (institut national de l'audiovisuel) has opened online archives, with free video and audio content (you can also pay for high quality versions).

    It's available here : http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php [www.ina.fr]

  • In Sweden as well... (Score:5, Informative)

    by isecore (132059) <isecore AT isecore DOT net> on Saturday April 29 2006, @02:44PM (#15228876) Homepage
    The Swedish government-owned TV networks are exploring similar options. SVT [svt.se] (as they're called, sorry, not sure if their site is available in Anglosaxon) are working on making available all of their archives over the internet.

    A small(ish) selection of the historical archives is available, and shows are available online up to a week after having been aired - but the plan is that one day all of the archives will be indexed and digitized and viewable over the intarweb. There's also rumors that this will be completely free for everyone who lives in the country and pays the state-imposed TV-license.

  • bbc 2.0 = snookr snookr snookr (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bazman (4849) on Saturday April 29 2006, @06:12PM (#15229584) Journal
    And it will look like this [msn.com]...

    yes, its the world championship snooker at the moment, so BBC2 stops everything for green baize action...

    • Who cares about your right-wing-american-nutjob sensibilities? BBC is not even left wing by european standards, and 5 billion people are anti-americans.

      • . . .5 billion people are anti-americans.

        Why that's. . .that's, well, UnAmerican, that's what that is.

        KFG
          • When you think a randomly selected cross-section of people is showing a political bias.... you might want to re-align your political spectrum or something
        • Good lord, if you're an example of the product of the American Education system then God help us.

          Anti-American means they don't like you. And there are more people in the world than just those living in the US.

    • Re:Staying Relevant (Score:4, Interesting)

      by spectrumCoder (944322) on Saturday April 29 2006, @02:13PM (#15228742) Homepage
      I shall further this informed and relevant debate thus...

      I think Fox needs to first get rid its right wing, anti-Europe bias if it wants to be relevant in the digital age. That would be the first thing that needs to be changed.

      In this age of left-leaning blogs that can monitor Fox's biases, people will realize how much of an agenda they have.

    • Re:Staying Relevant (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Cal Paterson (881180) on Saturday April 29 2006, @04:35PM (#15229262)
      Anti-US bias? You are confusing bias with factual reporting. It's something you might not get on Fox News.

      I've never seen anyone accuse the BBC of anti-american bias before; probably because the idea is so incredibly stupid. The only real case of a reasonable case for poor quality reporting in the past two decades was "Campbell Dossier", and this wasn't related to America in any real sense.

      If there really was any real accusation of anti-american bias, there would have been some kind of report or media discussion. There hasn't been; you're just sounding off because you don't like the coverage.

        • Re:Staying Relevant (Score:4, Insightful)

          by CountBrass (590228) on Sunday April 30 2006, @05:18AM (#15231146)
          And half of them are left-wing newspapers complaining of right-wing bias and the other haf are right-wing newspapers complaining of left-wing bias.

          Oh and then there's the Sun, owned by one of the BBC's competitiors (Sky), that just complains because their boss tells them to.

    • You know the BBC is not a standard US 'for-profit' corporate - right?

      Check out their 'about us' [bbc.co.uk] stuff.

      The BBC is financed by a TV licence paid by households. It does not have to serve the interests of advertisers, or produce a return for shareholders. This means it can concentrate on providing high quality programmes and services for everyone, many of which would not otherwise be supported by subscription or advertising.


    • Its becoming more and more common for legitimate companies to start a "competition" for one thing or another, its one thing for an FOSS project to hold these competitions or events, but for a "for profit" to hold these competitions seems like either lazyiness (their web developer doesn't want to) or incompetitance (their web developer isn't able to) I mean, honestly, just hire someone to do it

      No, it's what we like to call "just a marketing gimmick". In fact, they even address any "ripping off" or "freeloadi

      • Re:huh? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Stalks (802193)
        And if it did, they'd be in realplayer format (don't install realplayer - it's crap).

        So install Real Alternative [codecguide.com] instead.

        • Re:huh? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Coryoth (254751) on Saturday April 29 2006, @02:57PM (#15228925) Homepage Journal
          who'd install `real crap` on their unix machine anyway ?

          Given the quality of RealPlayer for Linux (basically just HelixPlayer packaged with proprietary codecs) I certainly would. I seen the Windows RealPlayer, so I certainly understand your reservations... but HelixPlayer and RealPlayer are remarkably simple clean multimedia players. Well worth the effort.

          Jedidiah.
    • From the front page of the linked site:

      DOES NOT INCLUDE:
      Anything to listen to or watch... Sorry, but the programmes themselves are not available.
      That would probably be why. Hopefully they will appear soon, since the BBC's charter does make it clear that it is their duty to get their content to as wide an audience within the UK as possible.

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