The BBC, which has taken user generated content to heart, has now taken a step into the world of user selected content, or social news & bookmarking sites.

We noticed today that the BBC have finally added the social bookmarking chicklets that are already ubiquitous on many other sites. Whilst this feels a little bit like a wannabe-cool Uncle trying to imitate ‘the kids’, I think that it’s pretty momentous, in terms of the acceptance of social media as a valid format.

The BBC, which according to Alexa is one of the 50 most popular sites on the web (and the 7th in the UK), is a powerful force for driving mainstream acceptance & understanding of new developments on the internet, and the addition of social bookmarks at the bottom of news stories, with a link to a page explaining what they are for, could be another example of this. I would imagine that their use of the standard RSS logo to promote their news feeds, has probably done more than almost any other UK site to increase uptake of this technology.

It will be interesting to see whether this move will herald other steps. At present the BBC only ever links to external sources from its side panels (except on its blogs) and it would be interesting to see whether this policy is likely to change, now that they seem to be getting more comfortable with the idea of blending their own & others’ content together.

I first noticed The Guardian linking to external sources from normal news stories (as opposed to from blog posts) in May of last year, and said at the time that I felt it could prove to be a tipping point, as The Guardian has often been the mine canary of online publishing. But with Auntie BBC getting fully on board the social media train, it feels like the point has well & truly been tipped.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.