BBC To Get Social

As reported by The Guardian, it looks as if the BBC's planned revamp to a more social media orientated website is an almost certainty. Sources from the BBC close to site's management have confirmed the changes will be launched by by March.

At the recent MediaGuardian Innovation Awards the BBC's controller of Vision and Online, Anthony Rose, was asked about the rumours that have been repeated by several online sources, and while he declined to reveal specific details, he did confirm that social media will play a major role in the relaunch of the BBC's whole suite of websites.

Mr. Rose explained that the BBC will be redeveloping their homepage but that the project will focus on also redeveloping their entire hosting platform. The basis of which will be to deliver "the next generation in social media". This will include "the plan to enable users to comment on particular moments while watching and see what other users said about the same moment or simply rate moments with 'Boo!', 'Good!' or 'Gosh!'."

It was also confirmed that the project would also be likely to include an open version of iPlayer. This would finally allow for third-party platforms to embed BBC content.

Beyond the addition of Social elements to the site, it was confirmed that there would be a strong emphasis put on promoting the BBC's sites as sources of breaking, up-to-the-minute news. Although the site attracts 10 million users a week, many fail to recognise that the BBC produces over 500 stories a day on top of a host of local content. According to a source within the BBC, there will be innovation in the choice of links on news stories, it might set a trend.

Whatever look or function the BBC decides to add, it is certainly clear that this is a serious endorsement for Social Media.