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The Times is leading today with a claim that the BBC is to close half its website as part of a dramatic round of spending cuts.
The move, which would also see the closure of digital radio stations 6Music and Asian Network, is reportedly to be announced by the corporation next month.
While there are no details as to which specific parts of the BBC’s vast web offering would go, it appears two youth-targeted projects Switch and Blast, both of which have large websites, would be closed. (more…)
The BBC announced today they will be releasing standalone iPhone applications for their news and sport content this April with Blackberry and Android versions to follow.
In a move that some will say is well overdue, the BBC will move into developing applications for mobile devices as smart phone usage continues to rise.
Disappointly from a personal point of view, Erik Huggers, director of future media and technology didn’t mention any possibility of a standalone iPlayer app in addition to the current iPhone optimised site.
“Today’s announcement means that we are catching up with our audiences,” speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. In relation to the BBC’s licence fee payers, he declared that they “want to access the digital services that they have paid for at a time and place that suits them”.
The applications will include audio and video content as well as providing the ability for users to send in comments and pictures in a similar vein to Sky’s News free application which has been available for some time now. (more…)
The web is finally old enough and important enough that someone has made a ‘landmark’ documentary series about it.
The Virtual Revolution starts tonight on BBC Two and “charts two decades of profound change since the invention of the World Wide Web, weighing up the huge benefits and the unforeseen downsides”.
This really will be a must-watch for web obsessives. In the first episode alone presenter Dr Aleks Krotoski meets Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales, online news maverick Arianna Huffington, YouTube CEO Chad Hurley, and the father of the web, Tim Berners Lee. (more…)
Delegates at music business conference MIDEM in France have witnessed the unveiling of a new digital file format, created by some of the names behind the development of the original MP3 format.
MusicDNA, described by the BBC as a ‘deluxe’ file format, will incorporate lyrics, videos and artwork. Files will also incorporate blog-posts which will be continually updated, along with the music itself, via the open MPEG-7 format.
Norwegian developer, Dagfinn Bach, who worked on the original MP3 player 16 years ago, has created the new format with some of its initial investment coming from Karlheinz Brandenburg, the German researcher widely credited with inventing the revolutionary MP3 file format.
Each MusicDNA file can hold up to 32GB of additional information, is fully searchable and dynamically updated whenever users go online. (more…)
The BBC has announced that plans to cut back its website operations, originally scheduled to commence in 2012, will now commence in 2010.
The Daily Telegraph reports that the millions of web pages currently produced and maintained by the corporation extend well beyond its core business. It is reported that entertainment, music and celebrity content may be some of the first areas to be hit.
The BBC plans to publish the results of an overall strategic review ahead of the general election in a report which is likely to take a hard look at the corporation’s remit. This review, along with a cost-reduction exercise already under way means that a smaller portfolio of channels and services, including web content, is likely.
Recent years have seen aggressive investment in the BBC’s digital presence, most notably in terms of the iPlayer and the extensive range of podcasts made available each week. The fact that cuts are likely to kick in within months of the strategic review suggests that the corporation may well have over-extended itself.
In soccer, the UK’s Premier League has announced that it is to appoint its first official technology partner.
In the first change to the Premier League’s sponsorship categories since Budweiser was confirmed as official beer in 2002, the BBC reports that the new technology category is set to boost the league’s international profile. It is believed that a global brand is favoured to take on the role and to feature on TV broadcasts as well as on the main website.
The Premier League points to increasing demand for in-depth information about matches and teams as games are now broadcast in over 200 countries. With this new deal, fans may even be able to monitor the performance of individual players, throughout the season and even during games. (more…)
Welcome to the latest and last weekly re-cap of 2009 from the UK team here at The Next Web.
One of the biggest stories to come out of UK tech this week for me was Project Canvas, converging the application environment with TV, Internet and on demand content.
Peter Evers, a fellow writer at The Next Web posted a fantastic demo of the project which was officially backed by the BBC Trust a day later. Other partners of the project include fellow broadcasters Channel 4, 5 and British Telecom which is a positive indicator of how serious a proposition this platform maybe in the coming years, in particularly if Sky were to get involved. (Full Article) (more…)
Throughout media history the BBC have always been hated or loved by many media professionals. Their business model is always a point of discussion both in British politics as in British pubs. But it is undeniable that the BBC has been one of the leading companies in developing media technology. Two out of many inventions coming from the BBC R&D department are teletext and stereo sound, which are still heavily utilized technologies today.
The same BBC department is now working on a groundbreaking project, called Project Canvas. Project Canvas is initiated by the BBC, but a number of partners have joined the project, amongst them are Channel 4, Five and British Telecom. Last week I witnessed a keynote by Dutchman Erik Huggers, responsible for Future Media within the board of the BBC, who explained Project Canvas. In the video below you can see the demonstration he gave (another conference, but same demo).
What Project Canvas exactly is
Project Canvas is basically inventing the use of internet applications through your tv set. By plugging your internet cable in your set top box you get access to something which is similar to Apple’s App Store. Just like Apple, BBC are also just creating the platform and the accessory software development tools. I believe this comparison is actually a very good way to look at Project Canvas. (more…)
In a ground-breaking move the BBC has opened up an archive of learning material previously only available to staff.
The College Of Journalism (CoJo) site includes over 2,500 pages of written and audio-visual content.
CoJo has the potential to become an invaluable resource to journalists, students and teachers. The site offers some revealing insights into the role of a BBC journalist, with sections dedicated to Skills, The Law, Ethics & Values.
In an interview with Journalism.co.uk, CoJo website manager Jon Jacob described how his team has sought to flatten the site’s navigation structure in order to ensure that most of the content is less than three clicks away.
Visitors to the site will be encouraged to discover content by using the Search function as well as the opportunities to ‘Explore Further’ by using the context-related links which appear throughout the site. (more…)
Yesterday Gordon Brown announced plans to shift public services and administration tasks online with the promise of saving circa £3 billion in tax payers money a year.
A few more initiatives like this and Brown will turn back the years.
As part of a wider program named “putting the frontline first: a smarter government”, the Prime Minister told the Smarter Government conference that it would see the ‘third generation of public services’ arrive with substantial savings to boot.
An example Brown gave at the conference was local authorities switching from a telephone to internet transaction and subsequently saving £3.30. With snail mail to online recouping £12.00 too.
With approximately 10 million UK citizens having never touched a computer, investing in a program to support this initiative is paramount to ensure the savings don’t affect standards and access to public services.
Today the UK Government also released ambitions to get another one million more people online by 2012, relieving the strain on my public services, in particularly the NHS.
The PM described the kind of savings that can be made for the NHS by using technology. “Using text messages to remind people of GP appointments can help save on the £600m annual cost to the NHS of missed appointments – that is the equivalent of 24 new secondary schools, or over 13,000 nurses.” (more…)
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