Rebooting the BBC home page

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Help us discover what bbc.co.uk 2.0 looks like.
We don't just want you to redesign the bbc.co.uk homepage, we want you take it all the way back to the drawing board…
Throw out the existing content, throw out the existing focus, throw out the existing expectations, limitations and assumptions – and help reboot:bbc.co.uk

So here is your chance to reinvent the BBC.co.uk home/portal/aggregator site. There are some great prizes available to the winner and runner-ups. Now I know there's been lots of talk about the rip off issue, which Ben has covered really well here in an entry titled we want to reboot not rip-off!. Here's one of the quotes.

…why not have “redesign the Ten O'Clock News” or “redesign The Archers” competitions. Or you could do all this yourselves, which is what I'm paying you over a hundred quid a year for.

But Ben Metcalfe returns with a fantastic comment which I feel sums it up nicely.

But not only does that not seem right, but that's not a BBC approach. Auntie doesn't always know best.

And thats where things get tricky I guess. Being a BBC employee, you would instantly think I would rush to the help of the BBC. But honestly I think the BBC is trying to really open up. Reboot is a way to encorage not only developers but anyone who has had that thought, why isn't the bbc website like this? Well here's a chance to put that thought in to action. And yes, thats my thought, not the BBC's.

On the plus side Martin Belam has showed his thinking behind the clean Google like BBC home page. I've also confirmed with Ben that reboot is open to everyone living outside the UK. So what you all waiting for? I have some ideas but there maybe a little too radical and niche to win a prize. Something to maybe inspire your thinking? Well how about the newly launched BBC Programme Catalogue prototype?

At only just shy of 1million BBC Radio and TV programmes over 75 years its pretty amazing to browse around. And don't forget every single part has RDF and ATOM data which can be easily used as part of a Mashup or something else. Pretty impressive stuff you must agree? Now back to rebooting…

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Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io