"The competition, announced at the Open Tech conference in London, has been organised by the BBC's backstage.bbc.co.uk developer network. Backstage lets people remix the BBC's content to make new applications. The latest content release is seven-day listings information for TV and radio, in a format called TV Anytime." This site provides information about and links to BBC open source projects. It lists projects developed by the BBC where the source code has been released as open source. The site doesn't cover the many open source projects to which the BBC has contributed, but only those that the BBC has initiated and managed itself. For the BBC, open source software development is an extension of our Public Service remit. Releasing open source software helps our audience get additional value from the work they've funded, and also get tools for free that they couldn't get any other way. It also allows people outside the BBC to extend projects in such a way that may in future be used in the BBC.
CultTv, previously adorned with the likes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" has now closed. Reasonings behind this decision are presented below in the BBC's response to many filed complaints. It seems that 700,000 users per month to the site was not a significant enough public resource with respect to maintenance and update costs. The BBC's response We recognise that the Cult website has attracted a large following. However, efficiency savings are needed to pay for new projects which will ensure that the BBC continues to offer distinctive and innovative services, so it is necessary to close this site. As Ashley Highfield, Director of New Media, explained in December "..to meet the 10% target set out by the BBC Governors, we are announcing today a further 7.5% reduction to be achieved through lowering investment in areas where we feel this will not cause a reduction in public value... These changes build on the first steps we took in July to close those websites which we felt did not offer sufficient distinctive public value for the investment required. The savings we made in July represented 2.5% of our web output." Furthermore, the BBC outlined in November its commitment to offer more distinctive content. We felt that many areas covered by the Cult site were already being replicated on other areas of the web. This meant there was very little distinction between the BBC and the commercial sector. The exception to this is Dr Who, the largest of our Cult sites, which has now evolved into its own website, as an extension of the hugely successful BBC One TV series. We hope users will continue to visit and enjoy this site. |
 Home Archives May 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 Previous Posts Ads Links Network Misc |
