It’s always pleasing to see a project you’ve reported on during embryonic stages finally take off. BBC Backstage, which we covered when it was first mooted, has now gone live (albeit, like almost anything of interest on the web these days, in a “beta” form).
Backstage is best summarised by its tagline:”use our stuff to build your stuff“. It allows public developers to build their own applications and sites which make use of BBC data (in the form of data feeds or APIs). Ideas for applications, and actual working prototypes, can be submitted to the site in order to promote them - and to allow others to build on top of them.
Backstage is an unprecedented project. Yes, there are limitations on how the data can be used: it cannot, for instance, be used for commercial gain, and any product supported by Backstage must display a public attribution. But it’s rare for a company (much less a media one) to open up so much of its primary business material for free - especially when that material is raw content, as opposed to say, search results. In many ways, the Backstage initiative is very similar to the Creative Archive: that sharing with your audience won’t necessarily lead to a loss of profit, but instead a profitable (in every sense of the word) relationship. It’s a noble cause to champion, and in some ways the BBC is uniquely positioned in its ability to do so. Personally, I can’t wait to see what emerges from this new approach.
If you’re interested in seeing what people have done with the service so far, take a look at the Backstage site’s list of prototypes. A particular favourite of mine is Yoz Graeme’s search engine for the Today programme archive.