New BBC Homepage? It’s Rather Excite(ing)
This week saw the launch of the new BBC homepage which has, unsurprisingly, generated a large amount of comment, including this interesting post by Tom about whether this means that BBC.co.uk will end up being a competitor to Google.
Whilst the comments on the new design have been mixed one thing that strikes me is that it shows how similar a lot of so-called Web 2.0 sites are to those from the first generation of the web, with the main differences being technology and the take-up of broadband.
Take for example Excite. Back in the late 90s and early years of this decade, Excite was considered to be one of the most successful of the portals that proliferated at the time. So succesful in fact that when I was working at a chain of internet cafes in Australia, Excite could afford to sponsor them so that all the stores could offer free internet access to customers for a month; I’m not sure how much the deal was worth, but it was more than just a couple of dollars.
And why was everyone so excited (sorry!) about Excite and other portals? Because they enabled people to aggregate all the content they wanted, in one place, as you can see if you click on the image below.
A lot like iGoogle and, if it follows the path that it seems to be on, the BBC. With the rise of search the portals took a good old-fashioned beating yet now, with the rise of technologies such as AJAX & RSS, and the uptake in boradband which allows richer forms of content to be served much more quickly, it seems like the portals are making a comeback.
This isn’t meant to in any way negate what the BBC have done, which is in fact a very bold move for an organisiation like the BBC (and which might, like their decision to make chicklets standard on articles did with social bookmarking, help to eductae the general population on the possibilities of Web 2.0). But it does serve as a reminder that there is very little that is new under the sun and that, in many cases, it’s not being new which is important but implementing something at the right time and in a way which will make its uptake by the majority of people much more likely.
I think RSS is one area where the BBC are letting themselves down - particularly as I mentioned with the iplayer. I wonder what would happen if the BBC launched some kind of RSS feed addition to their homepage!?
While we live and breathe RSS it’s interesting to see how many people still don’t ‘get’ it or still don’t use it.
I’ll give you the point about iPlayer, but think that they’re doing some good stuff in terms of educating people - like this, although it’s now harder to find this than it was on the old design.
You’re right however - when I was at my last position some of the team went out and asked people if they knew what RSS was - not many did (I think the only person on the video who gives the right answer worked for the same company)