So yes once again there are some good points in the thread.
We have been knocking on peoples doors about more feeds and api's and I
do believe once we have the API gateway system in place, you guys will
finally see more of them. Also look out for more diverse API's because
the API gateway should protect almost any kind of API we want to make
public. Oh and don't get me started on the API will be the Accessibility
of Web 2.0 thread. :)
Our partnerships with other large companies like Yahoo and Google has
been important for us and them. Not only because of the big events like
Hackday (who else would put on such an event?) but because we can
collaborate in a way that no one else would ever dare. For example
we're still in talks with some large companies and a couple of
government agencies about making there API's available under our
licence. Who else would they trust with there data?
The sponsorship of events is always going to be tricky, but we tend to
sponsor small grassroots events. D.construct is bigger that ever before
and we were one of the original sponsors back 3 years ago when it was
just a small one day conference. This year we again sponsored
D.construct and paid for the Food and Venue of the after party at Audio
(Yahoo paid for the drinks [1]). I even got up on stage and said this to
the huge crowd of developers. And _everyone_ agrees that the after party
at Audio this year was the best ever.
On the sponsorship front, we are also going to start supporting even
smaller grassroot events by giving each event organiser a chance to put
forward themselves for sponsorship. This means your local Ruby, Python,
SVG, XSL group could afford that venue room which has been out of the
question.
Least we forget the University work we have been doing to increase the
profile of development in the UK economy. We're not going to change the
face of education but with partners from the Angel funding and Venture
sectors, we will see more respect for developers in the future.
And this is just the start... We do believe in this sector and the BBC
is in it for the long term. We haven't always been as transparent as we
could have been, for example the Backstage Wild West servers we
announced at Hackday have been up and running for months now. But that's
changing... We aim to be a lot more transparent and as the number of
participators (developers, designers, bloggers, hackers, etc, etc)
grows, we will stay relevant and facilitate there deeper relationship
with the BBC.
Take care,
Ian Forrester
[1] Great picture Murray from Yahoo with the drinks bill, notice the
Backstage Lanyard btw - http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubicgarden/1356473775/
Matthew Cashmore wrote:
There are some really fair points here... Firstly I think the BBC is a lot
more relevant to developers than most other broadcasters - I think backstage
is testament to that - but I also don't think that we've necessarily made
ourselves as relevant as we could.
I think we've all been disappointed by the lack of new APIs and feeds that
we've released over the last 12 months - no excuses - this is because we've
been focusing on being part of the community, being at the conferences and
talking to people about what they want.. .this has perhaps left us with a
little less internal work than we may have otherwise done... But...
What it has achieved is a much bigger buy-in to what we want to do - we've
essentially been running around inside the beeb shouting - developers are
cool! Work with them.
Now we have to concentrate on making that stuff actually available to you -
part of that is the new website, part of that is the new totally developer
focused list, and part of that is us spending more of our time making these
things actually available and working. Giving you the tools to really get
inside the beeb and it's systems.
To that end we've been working really hard on getting an API gateway online
- that's nearly complete - we've been working really hard on making sure
that when an API goes live it's properly documented etc... All of these
things take time, and I'll be the first to admit that releasing new feeds
and APIs has therefore taken a knock.
I asked the developer list last week what feeds and APIs they want to see -
that is now my number one priority - actually making that stuff available.
Ian is furiously typing away right now about the importance of working with
the rest of the industry and encouraging developer growth within the UK...
Coming soon to an email client near you.
m
On 9/10/07 11:47, "Phil Gyford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 10/9/07, Gavin Montague <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
No one I spoke to said that Channel 4 wasn't relevant to them as
developers. However, Channel 4 hadn't shelled out to sponsor a web
development conference.
Fair enough - I wasn't aware of the sponsorship thing.
I'm inclined to think they should stop producing cruft like Strictly
Come Dancing and focus *more* on becoming an internet startup but,
again, I'm biased.
I'm not sure the show's ten million viewers would agree with your
description of it :)
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