On The BBC 2.0

novus ordo writes "BBC has been exploring the 'Web 2.0' approach in its future plans 'to keep the BBC relevant in the digital age.' They have also put an experimental catalogue online. 'This will allow you to find out about any of the one million programmes that the BBC holds in its archive, going right back to 1937. It's a window onto an amazing cultural and national resource.' They have also opened up a competition to completely redesign its home page."

Re:Staying Relevant

[quiffhanger]

You've got the remember, America as a country if far more right wing than the UK (particularly the popular media). Consequently a "centrist" POV for Brits looks right wing in the US. Personally I think Auntie has a fairly NPOV but I would, being a "left wing" (for the US) uk citizen. -ross

Re:Staying Relevant

[masklinn]

Who cares about your right-wing-american-nutjob sensibilities? BBC is not even left wing by european standards, and 5 billion people are anti-americans.

Xmltv of tv and radio programmes

[Lobais]

A thing I really think they should do 'to keep the BBC relevant in the digital age.' is to make xmltvfiles of all their tv and radio programme info. This would make them very useful for a lot of people, and sure wouldn't be very hard.

Re:The BBC's Website

[robthebob]

Just to play Devil's Advocate here (I'm at 1600x1200), firstly as pointed out by other replies a lot of people don't have screens that are that huge. Secondly, the BBC website is designed to adhere to certain standards of readability, and this involves presenting information in a primarily vertical fashion. People tend to lose track of text that flows over more than around 60 characters per line (cf Latex).

Re:The BBC's Website

[robthebob]

Sure, I'd be surprised if anyone was running below 1024, "huge" was referring to our kind of screen sizes, which really are the exception rather than the norm. I think my second point still stands.

Moderation Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice job mods. Calling someone a right-wing nutjob is "insightful" while calling the BBC biased is a "troll".

Obviously, name-calling is only acceptable when you do it to conservatives. The moderation buse is too glaring in this case.

Re:Staying Relevant

[Cal Paterson]

Anti-US bias? You are confusing bias with factual reporting. It's something you might not get on Fox News.

I've never seen anyone accuse the BBC of anti-american bias before; probably because the idea is so incredibly stupid. The only real case of a reasonable case for poor quality reporting in the past two decades was "Campbell Dossier", and this wasn't related to America in any real sense.

If there really was any real accusation of anti-american bias, there would have been some kind of report or media discussion. There hasn't been; you're just sounding off because you don't like the coverage.

Re:Moderation Abuse

[Cal Paterson]

Have you considered that perhaps the moderation was not for the insults, but for the points they raised? Thought not.

Re:Staying Relevant

[Gibsnag]

Well... At least the BBC represents the British public even if our government won't.

Re:Staying Relevant

[Millenniumman]

Even if it has a very slight right wing bias, how is Fox News anti-Europe? Because it occasionally hints at not being showing complete opposition to the President?

Re:Staying Relevant

[mrdaveb]

When you think a randomly selected cross-section of people is showing a political bias.... you might want to re-align your political spectrum or something

Re:Staying Relevant

[CountBrass]

Good lord, if you're an example of the product of the American Education system then God help us.

Anti-American means they don't like you. And there are more people in the world than just those living in the US.

Re:Staying Relevant

[CountBrass]

I'm sorry but you're wrong. People are anti-American because they don't like the way the arrogant and imperialistic way in which the USA behaves, doubly so under George "the moron" Bush.

Re:Staying Relevant

[CountBrass]

And half of them are left-wing newspapers complaining of right-wing bias and the other haf are right-wing newspapers complaining of left-wing bias.

Oh and then there's the Sun, owned by one of the BBC's competitiors (Sky), that just complains because their boss tells them to.

Re:In Sweden as well...

[bheer]

> (as they're called, sorry, not sure if their site is available in Anglosaxon)

You know, I'm American, I'm not 'Anglosaxon', and I can speak English pretty well. I know its hard to realize when you live in almost-lilywhite Sweden, but race does not correlate to language.

Or maybe you were just playing to the Euro Slashdot audience that thinks its cute to talk about le anglo saxon and their ghastly language. It'll be pretty freaking funny when these guys get the memo that more people speak English in Asia these days than the US+Europe combined.

Anglosaxon, my fucking nonwhite ass.

Re:Staying Relevant

[lysergic.acid]

Being pro-Palestine or simply against Israeli occupation doesn't make one 'anti-semitic'. Even ignoring the fact that Arabs are also semites, there are Jews (and even Israeli Jews) who are also against the occupation. Opposing Zionism and the state of Israel does not mean one hates Jews. In fact, the only reason Israel was established was because the British and U.S. government didn't want an influx of Jewish refugees after WWII. So the creation of the state of Israel is more anti-semetic than opposing its existence.

And simply being critical of U.S. policies does not make one anti-American or biased. Otherwise you may as well say that the entire world has an 'anti-American' bias. Have you ever considered that maybe you (and your prefered news sources) just have a pro-Bush administration bias?

Lastly, I rather think it's a good thing that BBC journalists aren't expected to conform to what American news outlets consider to be a 'centrist' point of view. Unlike in the U.S., the media is not strictly controlled by conservative elements in the U.K., and similarly, the BBC does not only present the Israel-Palestine issue from the perspective of Israel as American news outlets have a habit of doing. Perhaps you'd like to see reporters be fired just because they may have a different perspective than yours, but the rest of us like to be able to see all sides of the story.

Re:Staying Relevant

[StrawberryFrog]

I think the BBC needs to first get rid its left wing, anti-US bias if it wants to be relevant in the digital age.

Rubbish.

Firstly, you're trolling. "you have to be right-wing in order to be relevant" ? WTF, get a life, go back under that bridge, troll, etc.

Secondly, the BBC is paid for by the citizens on the UK via the TV licence tax. It is not even directly controlled or financed by the UK government via tax budgets, but via the licence fee. If Americans don't like what it says, that is largely thier problem, not the BBCs problem, and not the citizens of the UK's problem.

Thirdly, the BBC does a stand-up job of reporting news, far better than, say, Fox or CNN. If anything, they were to easy on the US and UK goverments during the whole "Iraq has weapons of mas destruction" fiasco.