BBC.co.uk Launches New Technology Blog
And here it comes, in the last dying breath, the latest blog from the BBC Website team. Dot Life (The Technology Blog), from the keyboards of Darren Waters and Rory Cellan-Jones is going to be an interesting read. I wonder just how enmeshed into Web 2.0 and cutting edge the blog will be, while maintaining the Reithian tradition of education. Time will tell, but it’s definitely one to add to your RSS reader. It’s certainly in mine.
As to the future, I suspect this is another ‘trial’ that the BBC is doing. As Darren writes on Twitter (Update: although in the comments Darren assures this is no trial . Great!!!)…
@ewanspence Thanks Ewan. It’s been a long struggle to get the funding to do it properly.
I personally suspect that there’s some sort of probationary period (six months?) on the project. Perhaps ex-BBC’er can pitch in to offer feedback without risking Waters and Cellan-Jones new gig. And I’d hope to see more guest writers pitch in with articles. Both the Pods and Blogs team and the lot from iPM are sure to have some good cross posts and discussions.
Thanks for the mention Ewan – and the link.
I can assure you, this is no trial!
We trialled it earlier this year at CES – under the Tomorrow’s World banner and I felt it was a mixed success.
You can see it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2007/01/why_tomorrows_world.shtml
We had 5 people blogging – and there were perhaps too many voices for the blog to develop a coherent shape.
I resurrected it temporarily for a visit to Silicon Valley in Feb/March and it’s been dormant ever since.
The issue we have had is one of comments. As you know BBC News blogs don’t allow free-for-all comments. Our moderation policy is pretty liberal but we needed someone in place to look after comments on the tech blog.
That person is now in place – well, within a few weeks she will be – and so we’ve soft-launched it now, with it up and running by the time CES kicks off on 6 January.
Rory and I have been desperately keen to get this going for many many many months – and are chomping at the bit now to start blogging and conversing.
Darren,
Thanks for the comments – main story updated. Looking forward to both the CES coverage and where it goes after that.