Slashdot Mirror
BBC to Provide Extensive RSS
Georgie2032 writes "The BBC News Online's Editor states that beginning in the middle of May, the BBC will be 'completely liberating the availability of its content' using its Really Simple Syndication (RSS) tool. 'So in May we'll be happy for outside websites to dip in and take our headlines'"
If they do this for press releases, Slashdot won't even need editors anymore!
The BBC is a public information service and doesnt rely on advert to get money but every english perosn paying for the privilage of having a TV or radio, this may be an alien concept to many americans but this is why the BBC can give other sites access to their RSS feed, because they dont cling to users visiting their site to keep their heads above water and resorting to obnoxious flash adverts and popups
I'll stick with my "Fair and Balanced" Fox News broadcasts/websites. Afterall, those evil Europeans are nothing but future terrorists and Christ killers!
Who do they think they are syndicating content without permission from US Copyright courts? [sic]
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Its a hell of a lot easier to parse and put into your news system if its in XML than HTML. HTML makes it look pretty, XML/RSS makes it look machine readable.
There is a long and ongoing conflict between the BBC and the other online media in the UK. BBC has been able to nearly exterminate all UK online news except the specialized ones. Even those have nowdays moved to a subscription model (FT, DT and the like). It is free, it is high quality and it is updated round the clock. This is seriously annoying most newspaper owners and editors who see their circulation dropping and online presence being pushed into the oblivion. Allowing them to feed on an RSS feed is a great marketing ploy. They instead of protesting endlessly will now become largely dependant on BBC news online existing. Once this happens Blair (or any other creature which replaces him) will no longer have the option to exterminate news.bbc.co.uk for "efficiency of public spending" reasons.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
The current feeds are made accessible for personal use only. The difference is that the Beeb will now be OK with commercial sites using them without prior agreement/contract.
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
installed by Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and is now all fired up about RSS.
The screensaver shows a swirling mist of RSS headlines from a selected feed, and every few seconds zooms in on one, lets you read it, then twists it away into vapor.
Hard to describe, but there's a movie here which shows it in action.
Pure eye candy of course, but majorly cool!
The BBC is an out of date tax on broadcast media that it morally wrong and uncompetitive. The BBC itself is an organization riddled with beaurocracy, massive egos, huge salaries, unhealthy festering cliques and class A drug habits paid for off the back of the British people.
Yes, it's all those things, and yet it does a better job than all your free market organizations riddled with their bureaucracy, massive egos, huge salaries, unhealthy festering cliques and class A drug habits paid for off the back of their subscribers.
You simply don't like the fact that our TV crap is better quality than your TV crap, doesn't irritate the hell out of people with adverts, and is free to RSS to the world. Grow up, and enjoy the competition resulting from a different market model. Oh and by the way, our tax is a hell of a lot less than you guys pay for TV.
Ummm.
Maybe I'm missing something, but the 'honestreporting.com' site does seem to have a single aim of increasing the amount of PR favouring Jewish interests.
If you are after balance, it strikes me as odd that you would refer
I am not a particular fan of the BBC, and its 'youth' shows are shockingly bad, especially radio 1, which is for tards. But its news is pretty good, in an up-itself British sort of way.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
I think thats probably due to the israeli's killing their reporters and carmera men. Its kind of a hard thing to get over experically when its all caught on film. Maybe another reason for it is there is a general anti-Israeli sentiment in british society. Note this is not the same an anti-semitism but related to the israeli-Palestinian conflict, which many find abhorrent.
:)
Considering the amount of disagreements the BBC has had with the goverment of the day durin its time maybe it should be called an Anti-Propaganda Mode.
The BBC while not perfect is generally held to alot higher standard then other broadcasters, and I think that is something to be proud of.
Shoot me
Hrm. According to the article, BBC's current RSS feeds are for personal use. However, slashdot has been republishing the BBC Tech News in a slashbox for quite some time.
Further investigation shows this page which indicates that UK Based sites can also make free use of the syndicated feeds. It seems other sites need to license them.
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
Actually I'd disagree that the BBC News is biased. The problem is that all the other news services in this country are obsessively shallow and/or right-wing biased. Just watching Sky News for a bit brings home to you how disgusting they are. I remember the rail crash near Paddington in '99. The hotel only had Sky on and they kept showing footage of the crash interspersed with comments about how this footage was exclusive and brought to them by a loyal Sky News watcher.
Essentially the BBC's job is to question the government and the opposition. They are a about as un-biased as you will get but the rest of the media makes them seem biased because they follow the route of hounding after 'celebrities' and the money big business provides. Or else they pander (like the Daily Mail) to small-minded thoughts that cease to have any bearing 3 miles outside someone's home: The "lock up the criminal scum (poor/black/non-christian people) but don't you dare build any prisons near MY house" mentality.
Personally, I'd point to the recent election broadcasts as evidence that the BBC aren't especially biased. If they have any point of view, it is a cynical point of view regarding *all* politicians. Which, in a democracy, is only healthy.
Relative to the US media, they are left wing. But the US broadcast media is very right wing, in any case.
The BBC is a well-respected source of unbiased news. (Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell disagree with that, but events have proved how wrong they are.)
To have other sites using their news feed will enhance the reputation of the Corporation further and can only be a good thing as far as they are concerned. Because they strongly depend upon their reputation when it comes to gettting funding it's a win-win situation.
That's a very good reason for the decision.
Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones.
Nearly exterminate? There are still more than a few news organisations with online presences:
Reuters
The Times
The Guardian (interesting... the content is free but if you want to read it in a paper format you can subscribe)
The Sun
The Mirror
ITN Sites, e.g. Channel 4 News
The Scotsman (a surprisingly large online presence)
The sites you mention: FT and Telegraph, it isn't surprising they charge as they have concentrated readerships with higher levels of disposable income, so why not go for a straightforward revenue model?
I have no doubt that the popularity of BBC news is for reasons consistent with the popularity of their television and radio news: high quality and impartial in a way commercially sponsored news could not be (commercial news also remains very popular: the total cross-media circulation of ITN, Times, Sun, etc is massive).
What about Channel 4 News? They go into much deeper into issues of the day than any other newcast, and press guests when they don't answer the question asked (i.e. doing a Blair).
As for papers, have you ever read the Independent? The story on the front page is actually a story. They don't publish stories about David Beckham's latest haircut, and the don't publish idle celebrity gossip (in fact, no mention was made of the Blunkett affair until it transpired that he may have used his powers inappropriately). Admittedly, sometimes they can be a bit heavy with the anti-Bush sentiment, but I think they are the most impartial of the dailies.
Allergy advice: Contains eggs.
No wonder "meme" is an English word
no its greek actually
[Shortening (modeled on gene), of mimeme from Greek mimma, something imitated, from mimeisthai, to imitate. See mimesis.]
even the American dictionary gets that right, i guess your schooling didnt though, not suprising though.