Thursday, January 27, 2011

New Approach to BBC Online: Doing Fewer Things, Better

BBC’s Director of Future Media & Technology, Erik Huggers, reveals a new approach to BBC Online today as the result of a strategy review and a 25% budget cut. The approach emphasizes putting quality first and curbing service sprawl.
  1. Doing Fewer Things, Better: Move from building one-off websites to managing online products.
  2. Maximizing Distinctiveness: Apply three tests to each site. First, do we really need this website to meet our public purposes? Second, to what degree does it help meet our five editorial priorities? And third, how does it differ from what else is out there in the market; is it distinctive?, and if not – should we be doing it all?
  3. Fewer, Better Products: Key products are news, sport, and weather.  Homepage and Search bind all the products together.
BBC Online will pull back from some editorial areas and even close down some websites completely. Meanwhile, BBC Online will NOT:
  • Launch its own social network
  • Offer specialist news content for specialist audiences
  • Publish local listings
  • Develop encyclopaedic propositions in Knowledge
  • Provide continuing professional development materials for teachers or a managed learning environment for schools
  • Become  a video-on-demand aggregator in BBC iPlayer, although it will link to other on-demand providers
  • Produce online-only music sessions Offer track-by-track music streaming
  • Invest in exclusive online sports rights

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