BBC

Vicky started the session with two videos highlighting user-submitted media that the BBC made use of in an interesting way:

• Burma Crisis: Citizen journalists were writing an "alternative Narrative" to official propaganda in Burma.
• Floods in the UK in 2007 were the biggest story that BBC Interactive Covered. Received thousands of photos and hundreds of video. This was showcased on a Google Map were coverage was embedded.

  Her interactive team consists of 13 journalists who work 24/7 and are dedicated to multiple BBC channels and platforms. They receive pictures/videos and then sift, verify and authenticate them against established journalistic standards. They then decide if these pictures could be used on the BBC platform. To ensure quality you need to invest - this isn't a way to cut costs.

  She refers to interesting research that was done for the BBC on trust and authority regarding user-contributed content. Around 1000 people were asked what they thought of user-generated content. The findings?

  • The public is in favour of it but are in favour of it being vetted first from someone.

  • A large number of people understood user-generated content and participation - but many didn't know how to participate.
  • 1/5 people polled have contributed to a news event in a fairly traditional manner - e-mail or phone in.

  Those are pretty encouraging statistics...

It was great news yesterday when the BBC's Alan Johnston was released after 114 days in captivity. Unfortunately journalists in Gaza cannot feel any safer after his release - today a group of Palestinian journalists came under fire from Israeli Troops in Gaza.

They blog industry rumours and chat cholesterol...

Last week Richard Sambrook, the Global Director of News at the BBC blogged about speculation of changes at AlJazeera and rumours about a demotion of the Director-General, Wadah Khanfar. Khanfar responded (by comment) :

Richard,

You shouldn't believe everything you read in the press.

Apart from my cholesterol, everything is under control.

So there you have it folks! Let it never be said that the BBC and AlJazeera don't get "Web 2.0" :)

A nice quote from Kevin Anderson on the difference between news stories and blogs :

"News stories should answer questions and tie up loose ends. Blogs should pose questions and leave some ends dangling to encourage debate."

via Richard Sambrook.

(on a side note, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy seeing the Director of Global News at the BBC blogging panel discussions)

via BuzzMachine

The embargo just came off a BBC announcement that they’re putting video on YouTube to reach more audience, worldwide. “YouTube is a key gateway through which to engage new audiences in the UK and abroad,” BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said in the release. “It’s essential that the BBC embraces new ways of reaching wider audiences with non-exclusive partnerships such as these.” Smart, those Brits.

The BBC will put up clips of new shows and promotional stuff about such stalwarts as Doctor Who. BBC Worldwide — which, as a for-profit division will take advertising — will show clips from Top Gear, Spooks, shows with David Attenborough, and more. And BBC Global News will provide 30 news clips a day, also ad-supported (and available only to us ferners). From the release: “Users will be able to comment on clips, rate them, recommend them to friends and post their own video responses to communicate with the BBC and other viewers.”

The BBC press release is here.

paidContent has a good round-up of what this non-exclusive deal means :

-- The main BBC entertainment channel will be a “public service” proposition, featuring no ads, but meant to drive people to BBC’s own websites.
-- BBC Worldwide: The second entertainment channel will feature self-contained clips - about three to six minutes long - mining popular programmes in the BBC’s archive. These will have pre-roll ads, and controversially these ads can be seen in the UK.
-- The news channel, which will be launched later this year, will show about 30 news clips per day. These will have ads, and for that reason, these clips can be seen outside the UK only.
BBC digital head Ashley Highfield said the BBC would not be hunting down all BBC-copyrighted clips already uploaded by YouTube members - although it would reserve the right to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people’s copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC’s brand.

Next week will be interesting...

Michael Arrington (TechCrunch) came out with guns blazing at a panel debate on why European startups were trailing behind their US counterparts. One of the reasons? The BBC.

His reasoning is that the BBC is getting involved in all sorts of markets outside of broadcasting and since they are publicly funded, they don't have to turn a profit. This then puts all sorts of negative pressure on startups who now have to compete with free (or publically funded) products.

Check out this video to see why Micheal Arrington thinks the bbc should be dissolved.

One of things Arrington pointed to was the CBBC "virtual world for kids" that the BBC is working on and how that announcement must have disrupted four or five startups.

I'd love to hear Ben Metcalfe's take on Arringtons comments.