The BBC has finally launched a ‘BBC Internet Blog‘. Even the name itself seems a bit anachronistic. But if we’re going to get ‘senior staff from BBC Future Media teams talk(ing) about issues raised by you about the technology behind bbc.co.uk, our mobile services and the BBC’s presence on the internet’, I guess it’s fair enough. I’m just wondering why they didn’t do it six months ago, before iPlayer damaged its previously bulletproof online credibility.
By launching a ‘proper’ BBC blog, they’ve taken the opposite path from Microsoft – whose internal teams are permitted, or indeed encouraged, to blog, but do so away from microsoft.com domain. (Usually on MSDN, more recently on Spaces.) Many of those likely to contribute to the BBC site – eg Nick Reynolds, the ‘editor‘ of the new blog – already have their own external blogs, where they’ve been quite happy to discuss and disclose their internal work. Would have been an ideal opportunity for a ‘virtual group blog’…
Incidentally, I’m indebted to Nick’s blog for the discovery of bbc.co.uk/programmes. A potentially staggering resource, with a page for every show broadcast on the BBC, including episode guides and broadcast times (plural), with categorisation by genre, format and tag. It definitely needs a usability lift, but if you can see the underlying potential here… er, blimey. For starters, imagine what you could do with schedules via RSS or iCal? (They’ve already got hCal support in there, if you look hard enough.)
If I might:
“Many of those likely to contribute to the BBC site – eg Nick Reynolds, the ‘editor‘ of the new blog – already have their own external blogs, where they’ve been quite happy to discuss and disclose their internal work. Would have been an ideal opportunity for a ‘virtual group blog’…”
… which the BBC Internet Blog links to. It’s here:
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/08891273145320764583/label/bbc-staff
I guess the difference here is that while I can put any old crap up on my personal blog, for example a review of the beer I drank in Australia recently – http://james.cridland.net/blog/2007/10/18/australia-a-good-country-for-beer/ – you’ll not get any of that on the proper BBC Internet Blog. For which we all breathe a sigh of relief!
I’m not sure, James… it doesn’t do you any harm to seem human?!
Was the Google Reader link there yesterday? I must have missed it. Good on you – I’ll certainly subscribe to the feed. It’s a bit different to my own ‘virtual group blog’ notion, which would be a bit more editorialised. But for zero production effort, this certainly goes a long way towards it.
(PS: edited to remove indications of my own ignorance. Looks like you can actually set Google Reader to share stuff automatically.)
Thanks Simon for your kind words.
In a typical BBC way we will try and do both things i.e. provide a place where BBC people can blog about BBC things but also link out to the places where the good conversations are, which will include personal blogs like James’. I hope the blog will develop so it can be a portal for this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2007/10/its_good_to_talk_1.html
It won’t suprise you that the most difficult thing was deciding what to call it…!