Way back in the mists of the late 20th century I attended a meeting with
someone from Factual and Learning about the Digital Curriculum - at a time
when it was still a thought. We suggested that it would be really useful if
teachers could take the "content" that the BBC produced and "re-arrange" it
to their requirements in their classroom. I suppose this would now be called
creating a mash-up. Such ideas lead to difficult conversations about what is
"content", how can teachers "mash-up" that content, in what circumstances
etc etc. As far as I can see Jam has not followed up on this.
 
IMHO, the BBC should not try to conform to some definition of Web 2.0 (and
what is a lightweight business model - one that is short?), the BBC should
be creative and innovative with what it has got and the delivery mechanisms
at its disposal.
 
The list as presented here seems to be a list of technical things that can
be done but without reference to what those technical things are being done
to (content) and to what end (what/why/how is being viewed/used and by whom
(the audience)). It seems to me the BBC have an aweful lot of content in an
aweful lot of categories and also have an incredibly diverse audience using
a variety of reception devices.
 
What have the BBC got?
Who can use BBC content?
What do the BBC want to enable people to do with it?
What can the BBC allow people to do with it?
 
and from that:
 
How do the BBC want them to do those things?
 
For example, you might decide that you want to enable anyone to do what ever
they like. You recently ran a competition for people to design a bbc home
page, but only a mock up. A theoretical route you could go would be for
bbc.co.uk to disappear and be replaced completely by 'services'. All those
competition entries wouldn't have to be mock-ups, they could be real. Then
www.bbc.co.uk might just be the BBCs own hack at putting a face on those
services. iPlayer (or whatever it is called these days) could be just one of
many apps putting a face on downloads/streams. Back to Jam, the BBC would
become a provider of "content components" to all the VLEs out there (perhaps
it already is).
 
On the other hand, given all the rights issues etc etc etc the BBC may be
forced to be a 'closed shop', no body can do much with much of your content
other than look at it and write comments on it. Your list will produce an
excellent, modern web site that elegantly degrades to the capabilities of
the users device and that is developed in a well managed environment. This
doesn't strike me as Web2.0, just web or in fact just "TV", the box is a
browser and that is all you can use to look at it and you can only look at
it in the way it was 'broadcast'.
 
If it seems I have missed the point, I was trying to address "So, I have a
kind of a list of philosophical tennets - ways that code and design and data
and content and whatnot should behave when playing nice on the internet."
The ways that code etc should behave will depend upon what you are going to
allow; what content can be used to what end and by whom?
 
 
Pete Cole

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On 7/14/06, Kim Plowright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
Hi all 

As threatened, here it is.I'm part of a project internally that is looking
at what the BBC does on the web, and how that should change over the next 3
years. As part of this, Tom Loosemore, grand paterfamilias of this list, has
asked me to come up with some 'rules of the road for web2 sites'. Nice tight
brief there, you'll appreciate. 

So, I have a kind of a list of philosophical tennets - ways that code and
design and data and content and whatnot should behave when playing nice on
the internet. I'd be really interested to hear what everyone here thinks. Am
I missing things? Obviously, I'm an editorial/management type, so some of
this might be barmy. But.. What do you think? Have I missed anything vital
about ways of making sites that play nicely on the web, and benefit the
whole internet more than the organisation? That are, to nick a popular
little motto, 'Not Evil'? 

I'd really appreciate the thinking of you lot here. List follows the sig..
Let me know if any of the buzzwords are incomprehensible; I've stolen the
categories from http://alistapart.com/topics/ because they seemed to make
sense.

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