backstage.bbc.co.uk is the brand name (and

URL A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the Web, is a reference to a resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identi ...

) of the BBC's developer network which operated between May 2005 and December 2010.

Purpose

Launched partly as a response to the Graf Review of

bbc.co.uk BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and BBC Sport, Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, t ...

, the aims of backstage.bbc.co.uk are to encourage

innovation Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or service (economics), services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a n ...

and

creativity Creativity is the ability to form novel and valuable Idea, ideas or works using one's imagination. Products of creativity may be intangible (e.g. an idea, scientific theory, Literature, literary work, musical composition, or joke), or a physica ...

in the UK, and to identify new talent. According to the BBC's response to the Graf report, the site aims to

History

backstage.bbc.co.uk was created by Tom Loosemore, Ben Metcalfe and James Boardwell. It was piloted internally within the BBC in the Spring of 2005, then launched on 11 May 2005. Its aim was to encourage innovative use of the content across

, including the BBC News website, by third-party developers. The website came out of beta as an official site on 23 July 2005 at the backstage.bbc.co.uk OpenTech event which was organised by NTK and the UK Unix Users Group. It is sometimes referred to as BBC Backstage, although the official title of the project is backstage.bbc.co.uk. The

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

admit that in the past they had not always welcomed amateur innovators who attempted to reuse BBC content, but through the backstage site they aimed to foster a dialogue with such developers and the wider community. This was essential as the BBC launched a video player online and the same community voiced their concerns. A peaceful DRM protest in February 2007 took place i
London
an
Manchester
by

Defective by Design Defective by Design (DBD) is a grassroots anti-digital rights management (DRM) initiative by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and CivicActions. Launched in 2006, DBD believes that DRM (which they call "digital ''restrictions'' management") m ...

, BBC Backstage kept the dialogue open in thei
public mailing list
and later in th
first of many podcasts
In July 2006, backstage.bbc.co.uk won the New Statesman New Media Innovation award. In December 2010, the project was closed. An ebook retrospective was created to mark the end.

Feeds

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

feeds are available on the backstage website for people to build with on a non-commercial basis. A complete list of the feeds available can be found on the site, but they include

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many ...

from the BBC News Website, TV listings (in

TV-Anytime TV-Anytime is a set of specifications for the controlled delivery of multimedia content to a user's local storage. It seeks to exploit the evolution in convenient, high capacity storage of digital information to provide consumers with a highly perso ...

format) and

travel Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical Location (geography), locations. Travel can be done by Pedestrian, foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without Baggage, luggage, a ...

delay data. The BBC's

feeds, which are a main component of their backstage philosophy, output around 500 unique pieces of news each and every day from its network of over 5000 journalists.

Events

In June 2007, backstage.bbc.co.uk and

Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...

hosted a weekend Hack Day in North London's

Alexandra Palace Alexandra Palace is an entertainment and sports venue in North London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. A listed building, Grade II listed building, it is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and th ...

for several hundred developers and designers followed by a performance by

The Rumble Strips The Rumble Strips are an English band from Tavistock, Devon. The 4-piece line-up of Charlie Waller, Henry Clark, Tom Gorbutt & Matthew Wheeler was present from the first recordings until late 2006 when Sam Mansbridge joined to fill out the soun ...

. The event was hit by lightning on the Saturday morning. Also in 2007, backstage.co.uk hosted the TV Unfestival at the International Television Festival in Edinburgh. backstage.bbc.co.uk is currently part of BBC Research & Development. The department headed up by Matthew Postgate. The senior producer is Ian Forrester and development producer role is open. Matthew Cashmore used to be developer producer at backstage but now works for

Lonely Planet Lonely Planet is a travel guide book publisher. Founded in Australia in 1973, the company has printed over 150 million books. History 20th century Lonely Planet was founded by married couple Maureen Wheeler, Maureen and Tony Wheeler. In 19 ...

, and Rain Ashford who now works for another

project in Media Literacy. In April 2008, backstage.bbc.co.uk held a new event (based on the Yahoo! concept - Hack Day) called Over the Air at Imperial College which was based around mobile development and ideas. In June 2008, backstage.bbc.co.uk held another event (based on the Yahoo! concept - Hack Day) called Mashed at Alexandra Palace in North London.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Backstage.Bbc.Co.Uk Internet properties established in 2005 Internet properties disestablished in 2010 British websites

backstage Backstage may refer to: * Backstage (theatre), the areas of a theatre that are not part of the house or stage Film and television * ''Back Stage'' (1917 film), a silent film starring Oliver Hardy * ''Back Stage'' (1919 film), a silent film starri ...