On Wed, 2005-10-26 at 02:23 +0100, Tom Loosemore wrote: > There are several reasons (some sound, some not-so-sound) why we've > not yet managed to make more APIs available. All I can ask for is > (yet more) patience. We do have some tasty new stuff in the works - a > BBC programme archive catalogue API, for instance - although the > postcoder API probably isn't going to be as sexy as we'd dearly wish, > for all the usual dull rights-related reasons. Before he set off on > his hols, Ben was hopeful about weather, but the truth is you never > really know what fresh problems are going to hit until the 'go live' > button is just about to be pressed (and sometimes only after that...). > > The benefits of 'open media' are second nature to many people on this > list, but it still an alien concept to most rights holders, be they > inside or outside the BBC. Much of our work has focused on selling > an open media model inside the BBC - probably too much of our time, > seeing how we've neglected the very people we should be serving > first (you lot). > > Our lack of engagement and communication with all of you on this list > is exceptionally bad form, for which I apologise on behalf of the BBC. One thing: Could you /please/ start sending us some sort of ongoing status things on the competition. Even if every day you send a mail that says "we've looked at these 5 prototypes, and the winner today is 'foo'", then when you run out of prototypes to take a first look at, run second-stages, etc, until you get to a winner. That's how the quiz shows do it, and there's no reason not to emulate them.
Really, I think as much as giving weekly status reports is considered to be Evil with a capital E, they wouldn't go amiss. If we don't know what you're doing, it's difficult to find ways to help you do what we want you to do, or even understand why it is that you seem to get nothing done. I suspect you /are/ getting a lot done, we just aren't hearing about it. > Maybe we really have 'gone a bit native'. Strange behaviours surface > when you see bbc.co.uk at the end of your email address; fear of > bringing opprobrium to the BBC due to saying the wrong thing in > public can cause otherwise eloquent BBC employees to clam up. Ask us > questions - there are lots of BBC people on this list. I quite understand; suddenly when I became management at a web forum I frequented, all the things I cursed the Gods for made sense. (Yes, I do mean the Gods; the site in question is perlmonks.org.) > 1) What is the BBC's Internet Strategy? > > It's here, in strategy-speak powerpoint. > http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/newmedia/bbccoukstrat.ppt > or here, or horridly exported html > http://www.tomski.com/bbcstrategy/bbccoukstrat.htm > > To summarise, the BBC's internet priorities are: > > i) On Demand ('How can we make our programme available on demand?') Well, this really seems pretty easy. Give us URLs. Duh. I know, I know, now the scepter of "rights" bears it's ugly head. My first question is "what are the rights"? Are there old shows in your archive that have had their copyrights expire? If so, there's no reason they can't be placed up right now, other then potentially bandwidth. (To which I'd say that you should offer them via torrent -- you keep running the tracker and a single seed, and let the mob effect take care of the rest.) What are the relevant contract terms for the other ones? How much would it cost users if every time they downloaded a show, they paid the full royality on it? There are likely plenty of shows people would download that way. (I'd assume that there isn't Crown Copyright involved, and if there were isn't the Crown free to allow you to give away copies of Her[1] material?) [1] -- (Or is it Its, since the Crown in question will outlive it's present holder? I'm afraid I'm not up on the protocol involved, not having been born to this culture.) Could you set up a dvd-on-demand program? Users go through the catalog, say "I want this, this, and this", you burn a DVD, and in the mail it goes. On a contractual basis, it's the same as the DVDs the BBC already offers of many of it's shows. It's not as simple as just downloading, for anybody (except possibly people who don't know how to watch movies on their computer), but it gets around any rights issues, except with contracts so old as to have no clause dealing with selling copies of the material rather then broadcasting it. -=- James Mastros - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
