Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
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?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
Sure, some people may bitch about having to pay a TV licence fee, but would this kind of thing ever happen if all broadcasters were only in the game for a profit?
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Hopefully for the bbc profit = "wide distribution of knowledge", not that traditional profit = "massive bonuses for executives"
Customer: Excuse me, I would like to complain about this Windows Security Update what I downloaded just yesterday.
Shopkeeper: Oh yes, a great Windows Update! Beautiful plummage.
Customer: The plummage don't enter into it! The problem is that this Windows Security Update is dead.
Shopkeeper: No, it's just resting! It will hop up any minute and dance around destroying viruses.
Customer: This Windows Security Update would not dance around even if Linus Torvalds himself gave it CPR!
Crow T. Trollbot
...that the Beeb has got it right. In the media business, the focus should be on content generation and the flexibility of form in media. Who cares about market share or sales or ratings, when you are truly focused on creating content and sparking creativity amongst the viewers/readers/listeners, etc... This is why the quality of everything the BBC produces is of the highest caliber. The closest thing we have here in the states is the poorly underfunded PBS and NPR networks. The day that the Republicans decided to rip away government funding from PBS was a dark day indeed and we're still paying for it in every sense of the word. Discovery and TLC don't even come close to what PBS used to be able to offer when it got better governement funding. Kudos to the BBC for showing the rest of the world how good it could be.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
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.
Stream getMovie(char* movieName)
getMovie returns a stream of data, if a movie called movieName exists, null otherwise.
Stream getAd()
getAd must be called before every call to getMovie. Otherwise, your computer explodes.
From time to time, a call to getMovie is forwarded to a call to getAd.
This is cool. If enough people use this to create cool stuff, and it generates enough publicity, maybe more companies will follow. If not, Grease monkey will let us most of this, but not as easily.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
We should use the API's to generate automatic stories on slashdot.
Ofcourse, generated stories will be rejected if it does not contain certain keywords or dupes. So I propose combining this with Slashdot random story generator
Python script to convert photos into "artsy" portraits: http://p2pbridge.sf.net/pyPortrait/
Doesn't this violate wikipedia's trademark?
Does this mean that we will have to program in proper English with a stiff upper lip? Will we get a compiler error if we use American slang and/or spelling? As long as we don't have to program in Esperanto...
I do like the comments attached to wikiproxy stating that it underlines links because links are meant to be underlined.
It's all well and good being standing up for these sorts of things, just so long as you adhere to those standards too.
Checking out the authors' website shows an abundance of links that are not underlined. Ah, the irony.
Kicking the BBC is too easy - you really don't come across as all that revolutionary by laughing and pointing at the mistakes they make. So let's give a huge *well done* to those at the BBC who no doubt slayed the dragons and fought tooth and nail to get this out of the door.
Still, nice way to claim some easy credit in all their hard work. Way to bask in the reflected glory!
There have been stories for a while that the BBC are putting all of their stuff online for download (for a price of course). Anyone heard any news on how that is progressing?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Could you imagine? We'd have one continuous "pledge-break" to "cover the cost". Unless Microsoft provided an endowment... *gasp!*
1. Open PBS content
2. Get Microsoft to pay for it, with the concession that it only work with MS Media Player software.
3. PROFIT!
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Obviously too long. It's expired, it's ceased to be...
Are they using OGG or their own codec?
(I recall stories about them developing one)
I've always found the BBC sexy. I used to think it was the accent, but I know I know it's a deeper love.
In Soviet Russia, asses suck this joke.
Be promiscuous. Looks like they're basically planning to take over the news world.
Deleted
Actually, I think I've seen some shows recieve funding from the "Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation," although that's of course completely different from what you're talking about.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
That's okay, here in the US we have to pay a mandatory license fee to PBS and NPR even if we don't have a machine that can receive the transmissions. Except we call it 'part of our tax'...
Could a commercial broadcaster ever take a step like this?"
As one who work in a commercial news website; nope. We offer simple feeds to private non-commercial sites that wants to have out 10 latest news headlines. But other than that, it would be like handing out gold over to the competition. Besies, we want people to visit our site. Not get all the goodies on other sites.
Now, a state-run actor can do this, because their mraginal loss is approx. zero. We have a state rune broadcaster in Norway and they SUCK. I hate them with a passion, because thei charge the license fee and give us crap back. If there was an option to pay to the BBC and only get BBC programming to my TV, I'd do it in a heartbeat. NRK (the state broadcaster) has so much crap, I don't have the concistence to pay for it. So I don't have a TV.
BBC is cool. they plan to make most of their archives available for the public free. Here we have out of copyright works DRMed in Windows Media DRM and published for a fee by the film board. How retarded is that? Do you want to see a clip from your state broadcaster produced comedy show that YOU financed through license fees? Cough up 5 dollars pr 1/2 hour, scumbag, and take this Media Player DRMed file.
God, I hate them. No wonder they fail misreably in the internet sector, even while having the HUGE advantage f bein a state broadcaster.
I only need to be proved to have a 'machine' that can receive the transmissions)
Luckily the TV licensing authority haven't caught me wearing my tin foil hat yet.
you don't need a license if you don't watch TV. even if you have a TV but only use it for watching videos you're fine.
plus it's not just a TV license, it's for radio too.
plus if you were really an "English man" you'd probably realise that it's one word.
It seems that Wikipedia becomes more and more integrated into the web. Regardless of what people say of its non-autoritativeness, it seems it's "good enough" for most. Most of my friends (even non-geek ones) know what "check the wiki" means, and it replaced the usual "google for it" in my vocabulary not long ago.
Mate, move to Australia and suffer the piss poor excuse they have for TV and radio here. You'd never moan again. I did, and I would willingly sell my first born to be able to access BBC content again
http://www.sydney-webcam.com
Could a commercial broadcaster ever take a step like this
Of course they could, if they could impose a mandatory tax on all owners of television sets, whether or not those people watch their network. It's very easy to give things away when your revenue stream is guaranteed by law.
£121 is barely 0.4% of the the average income in the UK, and if you're too poor to pay that without suffering irreparable harm, you probably don't have a TV to begin with, so you don't have to pay a pence. (And if you do, it's probably monochrome, in which case the fee is only £40.50). If you're over 75 years there is no fee, and if you're blind you only pay half. Living in the US, I'd gladly pay three times your license fee to get some decent news coverage!
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.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
It's only when I see comments on Slashdot (this shows the extent of my reading) that I come to appreciate what the BBC does and what my licence fee pays for. I have always been moaning about being forced to watch EastEnders by my wife, which is a realistic a portrayal of London as Friends is of New York.
;)
We do get a lot of American programs here and you start to think that the grass is greener. Then you actually watch an American channel and realise that most of the 40 minute program is made up of adverts. I was amazed the first time I saw an American channel. The titles started and then we went straight into an advert break. What!!. Talk about teasing you. You then watch 10 minutes of the actual program, which isn't bad, then you get the next ad break. You finally watch the last part of the program, which doesn't end with the titles but with another ad break. The titles then come after the ad break!?!
Any hoo. The BBC website is always my first port of call for news, sport etc...; after Slashdot of course
"Why take life seriously, you're not coming out of it alive anyway."
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
Life is NP-Complete
Crow T. Trollbot
Don't you mean Crówt, son of Trollbot, son of Thorgard, son of Geernon, son of Erik from Valdalesc, son of Arval Gristlebeard, son of Harken, who killed
[Error: Bandwidth limit exceeded]
Interestingly enough, as part of the BBC's new service, they've provided a tagging system (associated with delicious).
For example, the tags for Malcolm Glazer's takeover of Manchester United football club are currently given as:
"utd wanker wanker asshat asshat utd beard"
It's actually a great idea, but perhaps a little more tweaking may be in order.
True. I'm from England, and I lived in Australia for four and a half years. I once opposed the TV license fee.
I now consider it a bargain.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
The point of the "gunpoint" metaphor is to drive home the essential diffence between civil society and government. The argument is that government ultimately enforces its prerogatives with force, and so voluntary civil solutions may be morally prefered where practicable.
Some claim that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been a homogenizing force, squashing diversity in true grassroots broadcasting. How is it any better for the CPB to use its federal funding to monopolize community broadcasting than for a corporate welfare queen like Archer Daniels Midland to stamp out small farmers?
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
Let's be clear, you might not be seeing episodes of The Office any time soon via these sorts of initiatives. But this could all be an important step in unlocking the BBC's vast and fascinating archive.
What I'd like to see is the acknowledge of the wide BBC archive that's already out there, assuming they'd accept that any stuff they offer will appear in a free form at some stage. There's tons of it on p2p. It also raises the possibility of overseas users contributing just a little bit towards our licence fee for access to all this stuff. Wouldn't that be nice, pals? Whatt-o!
Could a commercial broadcaster ever take a step like this?
.. and probably do more than anyone else to make americans jealous of british tv, are also members then, yes .. expect to see content from them soon.)
.. Channel 4 do have a kind of public charter to appeal to a more alternative/minority audience .. but are self funded through tv adverting etc.
This sounds like the creativearchive in all but name.
As Channel 4 who put out amazing programs/films/ documentaries
btw
Would be interesting to see outside of England though.
This UID is 7651 digits too high to subjectively infer IQ from.
FYI (and being really picky), pence is plural. Penny is singular.
http://www.sydney-webcam.com
target = find_target();
if (target)
Dalek_exterminate(target);
for reporting the truth?
lying to start a war ought not to be a misdemeanor.
in most civilized cultures, that's high treason.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
>>>"why the quality of everything the BBC produces is of the highest caliber"
Now, I watch my share of telly including a lot of American shows, Friends, ER, Simpsons, StarTrek.
We get some good stuff from the BBC. But a lot of guff too.
Why-o-why did the BBC have to pay millions, for example, to get a sports show (Saturday night footie) when the same footie was already on TV on a commercial station.
Tell me how that sparks creativity - other than some £10 million footballer having to find creative ways to spend his oodles of cash??
BBC have some good points. But they often seem to think they are a commercial station - the management must be getting paid too much!
That's it, there is no other bit!
I wasn't complaining...
The BBC website in terms of content and contentmanagement already is one of the best sites on the internet as it is. This move will make it even better. I know a lot of Brits always agitate against the BBC, but being a neutral Dutchy married to an English wife I can say that BBC are absolutely ace compared to their 'competitors'
The cheapest TV you can possibly buy will be colour (Simple economics of mass production). The average income in the UK is around £30k, so £121 is about 0.4% of the average income.
Who ordered that?
It may seem like their perogative to do so, but the BBC is a public service organisation, and they are supposed to be working for the good of society, just like, in fact, all organisations should be.
The problem is that they have contributed to society, but in a way that makes society more dependant on them. It's basically the difference between giving someone Free Software, or giving them a free trial that may popup a dialogue asking for unreachable fees any day now in order to continue working.
Now, as for them wanting to continuing playing with their stuff... that is a simple matter of releasing beta APIs that are subject to change, the way all software is. There's no need for such sweeping disclaimers to cover that. In most cases, it would be easy and natural to leave the old APIs, at least for a useful amount of time, when moving on to a new and better one.
Don't get me wrong, I think the BBC are pretty great, and this is a bold move which I really respect and admire, but a few more guarantees would make it much more useful and reliable.
No, it's a licence (that's why it's called a licence) to receive broadcasts, that's a large funding stream for the BBC here (IMHO much preferable to having perfectly good programmes broken up every few minutes with inane advertising). You can own a TV in the UK without a TV licence. It's possible to argue that you only use your TV as a video / DVD monitor, I know some people who have successfully argued it - in at least one case legitimately (video editing suite). So it's not a compulsory tax.
Actually, they do get a share of the TV licence.
Would be interesting to see outside of England though.
It's available in all parts of Britain, not just England.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
but are self funded through tv adverting etc.
Actually, they do get a share of the TV licence.
Umm, no C4 don't get any money from the license fee. While they're a public organization like the BBC and unlike ITV and C5, they have to survive solely on commercial revenue.
This wasn't always the case however - in the past C4 was subsidized by ITV - if C4 made losses then the ITV companies would make up for the losses, but that link was severed several years ago. But at no time did C4 ever recieve license fee money.
This might change in the future though - with the current charter review, the government are looking at giving the commercial broadcasters some of the licence fee money to make public service programmes.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
Come on! BBC news is excellent. Name me a better news provider.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
This was an issue several years ago, with commercial magazine publishers complaining that the BBC was effectively advertising the Radio Times on its TV channels in opposition to the publishers' own listings mags (RT is a BBC-published listings magazine. As its name suggests, it pre-dates television; and for many years it was virtually the only listings magazine available in the UK).
These and other similar complaints are the reason that when an ad for RT appears nowadays, the words: "other listings magazines (or "cookery books", or whatever as appropriate) are also available" appear in tiny letters at the bottom of the screen.
Oh, and revenues from the BBC's commercial activities do go back into funding production, I believe.
And Jonathan Ross's show is an arse-licking extravaganza, which is a shame because Ross himself can be a funny and edgy presenter and he also hosts an excellent film review show in which he is regularly a great deal less flattering about some of the very same films whose stars he fawns over on his talk show.
Also, like several other shows which mine the same seam, his non-Hollywood guests are drawn from a very small pool. So you can pretty much guarantee that e.g. Johnny Vegas, Eddie Izzard, Peter Kay and Ricky Gervais are all going to get the gig at least once per series. Nothing against any of those guys, but they might as well come on wearing tee-shirts emblazoned "New Comedy Establishment" on the front and "Friend of Jonathan" on the back.
How is this a troll? The ~$20/month is a fact, as any UK resident can point out. As for the propaganda, the BBC's idea of 'diversity of opinion' is limited to the liberal London set. And if you believe they don't have their own agenda, you're dreaming.
Go somewhere random
I don't have a problem with their _news_. However, when the _personal_ liberal slant of their presenters (unsuprising when you consider they come almost uniformly from the London liberal set) seeps into their news presentation, I do have a problem. Google 'BBC Bias' for several interesting examples.
I'm sure there are people who'd spring to the Beeb's defense with lots of "j00 sUck"-type comments, however, I do know several people who ask why they should continue funding an allegedly public service that unfailingly mixes opinion into its news** to promote a particular ideology.
** Note that perhaps all media is guilty of this these days: from the NYT to Fox News. The difference is, you *choose* to fund NYT/Fox by reading the NYT or watching Fox. OTOH you are _forced_ to fund the Beeb.
Go somewhere random
If only they'd launched this a couple of months ago, then I wouldn't have had to spend so much time mangling the html the old-fashioned way. ;-)
"Pokey, are you drunk on love?" "Yes. Also whiskey. But mostly love... and whiskey."
The Beeb can be divided into three parts.
1) The BBC home service, paid for by the license fee. This aims to give independant quality broadcasting to the public in the UK - and only there. See also http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/running/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/licencefee/ It is based in Broadcasting House.
2) The BBC World Service is a free, separate organisation that broadcasts to the rest of the world (theoretically not - as far as I remember - to the UK). It has its own news organisation and was previously based in Bush House, although it has recently moved. It is funded only by government grant, not licensing fees.
3) The commercial branch of the BBC is self-supporting. They make shows and sell them, and have various other activities.
(I'm afraid I can't point out links to everything in this comment, most of it coming from family members who worked in the BBC)
macdo10
No, he means Crowt von Trollbotsthorgardergeernonvanerikzuvaldalescsberga rvalgemachtgristlebeerdeharkennen of Ulm.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
sadly it was only avaiable for Win 3.1 :(
It came with the "Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time" game CD. Damn that was cool!
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
Anyone who claims that ANY TV news is excellent is a very sad little boy who needs to get out more and see the world!
Television will ALWAYS provide a biased viewpoint and the bbc are no different to any other. The bbc are a reflection of the inbreeding English vermin that have evolved in a country of nepotism, cronyism, snobbery and sticky family networks, where so many locations mirror that of the trailer trash in the American Midwest.
The UK is seriously hidden from the truth in current affairs, where the fuck is the coverage of Saddam? And recently I saw an article discussing North Korea planning an underground nuclear test, where the beeb slap a picture of a military ballistic missile on the page. This suggests to the viewer the country is planning a military strike and is blatant propaganda, shame on the bbc for this act of terror! The firm are scum.
Come June/July Iran will be invaded and Bah Bah Blair will commit further troops to the Illuminati war program, and the bbc will have laid the groundwork for him.
The Internet is one of the few ways to explore the truth, I suggest you learn how to use it krishna!
Sorry, you're right. C4 asked for license fee funding in November and I thought they'd got it. Apparently no decision has been taken.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
uknova.com is your friend.. :)