Reportr.net

In a sign of the BBC’s attitude to blogs, the corporation has appointed a blogger-in-residence.

Internet executive Steve Bowbrick will be blogging for BBC Future Media & Technology for six months.

What is interesting about Bowbrick’s appointment is that he is an outsider, or as he puts it: “I realise I’ve made it to 45 years old without ever working at the BBC, and it’s genuinely exciting.”

His brief is to work on ideas for a common and open technology platform. The questions at the BBC is how open can the corporation be, what should it share with outsiders and should it be be opening our banks of content and code to licence fee payers, entrepreneurs and organisations?

And for the BBC, these questions are given an extra urgency by the context: by the chaotic decline of commercial broadcast TV, by Ofcom’s apparently unending review of public service media, by the troubled birth of the Kangaroo JV and even by Channel 4’s bid for the social media high ground with 4iP.

The issue is part of a wider debate on the role of the BBC in the UK’s media landscape.  As a public-funded organisation, it enjoys a privileged position.  Looking at ways of sharing its technology is one way of countering accusations that it is seeking to dominate the world of new media.

(Photo:Mike Butcher)

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