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?"

Missing Link

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.

Define profit

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

Re:Missing Link

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

> and a del.icio.us-enabled version of BBC News

Now, what's to prevent script kiddies, or heaven forbid, more knowledgeable malware writers, from coming up with new means to zombify your computer to add to the growing pool of spam gateways, ddos relays, or simply an all out porn repository?

I propose the domain, mal.icio.us for exactly such acitivities.

Solomon Chang

Re:Missing Link

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

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?

wait, hold up, what?

I'm confused... it sounds like someone is actually encouraging people to share information. I'll need to read that again. Hold on...

-truth

Would this ever happen without the licence fee?

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

Re:Would this ever happen without the licence fee?

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...

Re:Would this ever happen without the licence fee?

BBC America isn't the same as it's UK cousins. It's a fully commercial network, not funded by any license fee. They're run by BBC Worldwide, which is the commercial arm of the BBC, and have to purchase the rights to any and all programming they air, just like any other American network. They also have commercials, which makes for slightly strange programming blocks, IMO.

Re:Would this ever happen without the licence fee?

Exactly.

I barely watch TV at all, but I'm happy to pay the TV license to fund the BBC. For all the (naive) /. belief in the "free market", and sniggering about the silly "socialist" "tax" on TV in the UK, I seriously challenge anyone to convince me that the BBC would do as much cool stuff as it does if it had to be fully commercial. Want proof? Look at ITV and Channel 5. Terrible. The BBC is bad enough due to even having to compete in the commercial marketplace - daytime/primetime schedules on BBC1 and BBC2 TV have been dragged down into the same wall-to-wall "reality TV" / soap-opera shite and are barely better than the garbage on the commercial stations. But even if the TV gems like Alan Partridge and The Office dry up, at least they still do stuff like amazing David Attenborough documentaries, a fantastic online resource, some truly great stuff on their radio, developing free (Free?) codecs. I don't think any of that would happen, at least not to the same extent, if they were "just another commercial TV station".

Where's the Monty Pythonizer?

I want an API that turns any webpage into a Monty Python sketch!

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

Further Proof...

...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.

PBS next?

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.

Extract from the Api

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.

Re:Extract from the Api

You must be thinking of RealPlayer ;)

Re:Extract from the Api

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 [wikipedia.org] and as such we own them MWAHAHAHAHAHA...

Automatic slashdot stories

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 [bbspot.com]

Hmm

BBC News wikipedizing proxy

Doesn't this violate wikipedia's trademark?

Coding style...

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...

Re:Coding style...

streamer.c:1: error: local time 16:01:43 GMT. Tea break detected. Recompile in 4 minutues 17 seconds

Commercial problems...

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.

Collaborative Tagging

Interestingly enough, as part of the BBC's new service, they've provided a tagging system (associated with delicious [del.icio.us]).

For example, the tags for Malcolm Glazer's takeover of Manchester United football club [headshift.com] 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.

Parent is troll

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.

Re:*Free*

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 [bbc.co.uk] and The Office [bbc.co.uk] while supporting high quality radio and fantastic web services. All for £10, or $20 a month.

People like you amaze me.