> -----Original Message----- > From: Ted Gilchrist > > Can someone provide a medium term prognosis for Backstage?
Hey Ted. I don't think I have a firm "prognosis" for where this is all going - that's part of the excitement. We're certainly not choreographing or stage-managing this into a set game-plan. The main reason I pushed for backstage.bbc.co.uk (along with Tom Loosemore and James Boardwell) was that loads of people were already producing their own cool projects that used BBC content. I wanted to promote this kind of "skunkworks" innovative development, and ensure that these folks were able to obtain licensed content so that their works were totally legit. We're just at the beginning of that endeavour - I want to push the BBC to open up as much of it's content as I can over the coming weeks, months, (years?). I guess that's where it's all going. > Most of the prototypes are just that, prototypes, and will > only achieve their full glory if more resources are devoted to them. Hmmm, I'm note sure if I agree. I guess it depends what you mean by "full glory". Many of the projects submitted to the BBC are self-sufficient, free standing, usable propositions. Sure they might not be "enterprise-grade", but they don't have to be. One of the mandates for backstage.bbc is to "encouraging users' efforts to build sites and projects that meet their needs and those of their communities". Many of our backstage.bbc users are more than capable of building propositions that more-than-adequately meet their needs, when given access to our BBC content. But yes, there will be some projects that need further investment to see their full potential. I think what you're asking is "is the BBC going to be throwing money at the propositions created on backstage.bbc.co.uk?". The answer to that is probably. We've never committed to fund, resource or commission anything produced on backstage.bbc. However, I hope we will and I'm pretty sure we will. If we see something that we think could provide value to our core BBC audience, then yes, we might open a dialogue with the developers of that prototype to discuss how we could take it further. But don't forget - we're in beta at the moment (in the old-fashioned sense of the word... We're not an in-vogue perpetual beta site!). backstage.bbc.co.uk will gain a bit of a structured side to it when we launch, but more of that to come..! > Or are we just waiting for the trees to become more laden > with their intellectual fruit, before harvesting begins? > There will be a harvest, right? I mean that in a good way. To continue your analogy, the great thing is that backstage.bbc is a bit of a community "pick-your-own" farm. It's not a private orchard owned by the BBC. Anyone can dip in, take a look at what's being grown - and harvest if they want. And when I mean anyone, I mean anyone. Individuals, small companies, established names, venture capitalists, even our rivals... anyone. We've carefully set up the licensing on backstage to ensure that _you_ retain the intellectual property of what you produce (we just retain the rights to our content - see http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/05/faq.html#whatwilltheBBCdo). If you produce, say, a cool new way to display news headlines, and CNN or Fox or anyone else wants to buy up your prototype, they can. All we will ask is that you remove the BBC content if you enter into any kind of deal with a third-party - but I'm sure you'd agree that's only fair. But Ted, if you've got ideas and suggestions on where you'd like to see backstage.bbc.co.uk head, do let me know -- either publicly in this discussion group, or drop me a line (backstage [at] bbc.co.uk) Ben Metcalfe :: backstage.bbc.co.uk
