Blogging BBC
View CommentsOn April 8, 2006, the BBC opened their blogging portal, the BBC Blog Network, which currently boasts a dozen blogs across five categories, or divisions as the BBC is calling them.
Community–offers three community portals where people can set up their own blogs as part of a community based around a particular topical area of interest. This is the only build your own blog part of the network.
- Island Blogger is for Scotland..
- North East Wales is self-explanatory.
- Ouch is about people with disabilities.
The Music and Comedy division currently has only one blog.
- The Comedy Blog.
People offers four blogs
- Dan Damon (World Update)
- Paul Mason (Newsnight)
- Nick Robinson (Political Editor)
- Jeff Zycinski (Radio Scotland)
Sport currently offers one.
- Commonwealth Games
World offers two more.
- My Africa
- World Have Your Say
Daily news RSS feeds on a specific question invite readers to “Have your say.” Several pages explain what a blog is, how to search blogs, use a wikipedia, get one’s very own blog, and offer feedback to the BBC.
It seems to me that the stately, gray-haired lady of the monarchy, the BBC, is taking blogging seriously. Unlike the U.S. showy parts of the mainstream media, they seem to be going about their business quietly and with some thought, pulling the best ideas from what they see.
They don’t seem to be attempting to make their blogs look like their print product. They seem to have studied what works and doesn’t work about blogs before they started.
Unlike the UK book publishers who have, in the past, had a problem with the “not invented here syndrome,” the BBC seems quite comfortable with new ideas.
This may be the most exciting media endeavor the UK has taken on freely in decades. From all looks they’ve got the strategy.
Visit and poke around the BBC Blog Network, and if you have time, do come back and tell me what you think.
BBC is setting trends. Imagine that.
Liz Strauss
