BBC unveils radical revamp of website
The BBC today unveiled radical plans to rebuild its website around user-generated content, including blogs and home videos, with the aim of creating a public service version of MySpace.com. — Ashley Highfield, the BBC director of new media and technology …
Context & Ripple Effects
The BBC had already made its web output more portable through RSS feeds and made its archive more navigable with a programme catalogue covering nearly a million entries. The new plan shifts the site’s role from distributing and indexing BBC material toward incorporating audience contributions alongside it.
That matters because Ashley Highfield is framing participation as part of the BBC’s public-service web strategy, rather than as a separate community product.
First-order effects
- BBC audiences are slated to gain routes to publish blogs and home videos within the broadcaster’s web estate, expanding the kinds of material the site must present and manage.
- The BBC’s new-media operation must combine institutionally produced programmes, catalogue material and audience submissions in a single service.
Second-order effects
- BBC editorial and technical teams face a more complex publishing workflow, since audience material must coexist with the feeds and archive resources the corporation already distributes.
- Commercial social-network services such as MySpace gain a public-service competitor for users seeking spaces to share personal media, though the BBC’s offering is defined by its broadcaster setting rather than a standalone network.
Third-order effects
- If public broadcasters adopt participation as a core web function, their digital value shifts from owning a catalogue alone to organizing a mixed ecosystem of professional and audience material.
- The move points to a broader redefinition of public-service media online: distribution tools and archives become foundations for community participation, not merely destinations for finished programmes.
The trend: Broadcaster websites are evolving from one-way programme destinations into participatory platforms that combine archives, syndication and user-created media.