BBC Launches APIs

Stefan Magdalinski writes "The BBC is opening up a slew of APIs to its content and applications via a new site, backstage.bbc.co.uk, and actively encouraging users to remix, mashup, and otherwise play with their content to create new applications. Already there's a few cool featured apps, my own BBC News wikipedizing proxy, and a del.icio.us-enabled version of BBC News "Use our stuff to create your stuff" is their slogan. Could a commercial broadcaster ever take a step like this?"

Comments

Missing Link

[fembots]

1. Use our stuff to create your stuff
2. ???
3. Profit!!!!

Terms & Conditions:

4. The BBC may edit, amend or change the BBC Content that appears on the backstage.bbc.co.uk site at any time at its discretion. The BBC also reserves the right to modify or discontinue the backstage.bbc.co.uk site at any time.

Re:Missing Link

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an American, so correct me if I'm wrong, but i thought that the BBC is government funded and is not looking for step three.

Re:Missing Link

[NeedleSurfer]

And the problem is? What is wrong with them wanting control over their content and content distribution system? All they are saying is play with it but so will we. They don't make a site so you shamelessly copy them to profit or get eyeballs at your own site, it's even surprising (in a good way) that they actually let you play with their apps and give away their intellectual property that freely, all they want in return is the possibility for themselves to also play with it regardless of what you have done with it...

Some people are never happy...

Re:Missing Link

[Anonymous Coward]

4. The BBC may edit, amend or change the BBC Content that appears on the backstage.bbc.co.uk site at any time at its discretion. The BBC also reserves the right to modify or discontinue the backstage.bbc.co.uk site at any time.

and what web service, especially free ones, don't have a similar clause in them?

Re:Missing Link

[Capsaicin]

If they were government funded there wouldn't have been all the fuss over BBC vs Government during the whole Iraq thing.

Not so. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is funded from consolidated revenue, and they still had a spat with the government apropos Iraq (though not as big a spat was the BBC did).

Their independence results instead, it from the fact that each of these broadcasters is formally an independent corporation. Of course the question of funding, whether out of consolidated revenue or via a licensing 'fee,' given governments some leverage over these organisations. Additionally, at least in the case of the ABC, appointments to the board (as with judges to the bench) are made by government. In Australia at least, the government, as a matter of convention and honour, has tradtionally resisted making overtly politcal appointments or using funding cuts as a punishment for criticism. Unfortunately given the international Retreat of Democracy this seems no longer to be the case.

Universal Streamer

[geomon]

So what is the possibility that we could be converging on a universal streaming client? I know Microsoft and Real would like to see their systems become the ligua franca of streaming video, but the BBC has the advantage of a huge library of content.

Will content trump market penetration?

Define profit

[grahamsz]

Hopefully for the bbc profit = "wide distribution of knowledge", not that traditional profit = "massive bonuses for executives"

PBS next?

[Colonel Panic]

Could a commercial broadcaster ever take a step like this?

Not likely, but what about PBS doing something similar to what the Beeb is doing? There are other non-commecial broadcasting entities around the world which could do similar things.

Re:Extract from the Api

[Anonymous Coward]

Except getAd() won't work on the BBC, it's all paid by the british licence fee of about £100 a year per household.

Re:Extract from the Api

[MoonBuggy]

Funny, but it's worth mentioning that the BBC have no ads on their TV channels, radio stations or website. That's not likely to change since they're funded by the license fee and as such we own them MWAHAHAHAHAHA...

Re:Would this ever happen without the licence fee?

[Rorschach1]

I'm so disgusted with what passes for programming on the American TV networks that I'd be more than happy to pay the British TV license fee if it'd get me all the BBC content.

Yeah, I'm sure the founding fathers are turning over in their graves at the idea of an American volunteering to pay a British tax, but then the founding fathers would understand if they had to watch the WB...

Want to grab a market

[Colin Smith]

Be promiscuous. Looks like they're basically planning to take over the news world.

Re:Hmm

[gstoddart]

BBC News wikipedizing proxy

Doesn't this violate wikipedia's trademark?

Well, wiki seems to becoming a verb like google at this rate.

I see so many wiki-ish links all over the place nowadays it's hard to tell which are actually using wiki, and which are just wiki-like.

Re:Would this ever happen without the licence fee?

[radish]

Yes, cable gives you more choice, but speaking as a British ex-pat, BBC America != "the BBC channels". For one thing much of the content on BBC America isn't even produced by the BBC (they license material from other British networks like ITV and Channel 4), and for another most of the good stuff is either completely absent or very delayed.

Re:*Free*

[Oxygen99]

Oh do be quiet troll.

The BBC license fee is one of the best investments you'll ever make. Where else can you be ensured of an impartial independent information channel with consistently high quality output imparted through channels so diverse you probably haven't heard of half of them. I'm sure you'll be ecstatic when the entire gamut of television in the United Kingdom runs from the Celebrity Wrestling to Footballer's Wives. Personally I'd prefer to keep programs such as the Power of Nightmares and The Office while supporting high quality radio and fantastic web services. All for £10, or $20 a month.

People like you amaze me.

What is next after RSS?

[ffdixon]

While BBC's announcement is still about offering RSS and RDF feeds, and their APIs are not yet available, their effort is in the right direction.

Do you ever get the feeling that when a site finally puts up an RSS feed, they are saying 'Look, we now have a feed. Have at it folks. That's it on our end. No need to innovate further." In contrast, the BBC is not just giving out more feeds for RSS readers: they are giving components for creating applications.

I work at Serence, a company that for the last three years has been building a platform for deploying personal dashboards written in XML and JavaScript (http://www.serence.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=751) .

We've been thinking a lot about this question: what is next after RSS?

We think the next step beyond RSS is to create more intelligent clients, and we are trying to make it easier for people to do just that. Users want to have more control over their content. The BBC is realizing something that is counter-intuitive to many companies: give users more control over your content and it will increase adoption because each user can customize their awareness to their needs.

Wow, this may even make the BBC cool again.

Regards,... Fred

Re:Would this ever happen without the licence fee?

[PaxTech]

Meh.. Am I forced to buy the products advertised on the TV shows I watch? Do they come to my house and charge me with a crime if I don't?

Saying the TV license is a pretty good deal implies that you have a choice whether to pay it or not. It's fundamentally anti-freedom to be FORCED, by LAW to pay for programming that you don't even watch just because you own a TV.

No one else sees this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills... :) If Microsoft was a government controlled entity and every computer owner had to pay a license fee to fund Windows development, the slashbots would be losing their friggin' MINDS.

Re:Would this ever happen without the licence fee?

[PaxTech]

Companies advertise on TV to sell more products. The more products they sell, the less they have to make per product due to economies of scale. I could argue that products being advertised on TV actually effectively lower prices overall.

But you want to say they're slightly higher, and you compare this to a government imposed tax that no one has a choice not to pay because you personally feel that the tax is a good deal for you, since you happen to like what the government does with the money they take from other people by force?

This is like talking to a wall. I guess it's an example of that quote I see on somebody's /. sometimes.. A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on Paul's support.