BBC iPlayer

This is a really big deal. I wish we had this kind of big company activity in the US.

From the article:

The BBC today unveiled radical plans to rebuild its website around user-generated content, including blogs and home videos, with the aim of creating a public service version of MySpace.com.

Ashley Highfield, the BBC director of new media and technology, also announced proposals to put the corporation's entire programme catalogue online for the first time from tomorrow in written archive form, as an "experimental prototype", and rebrand MyBBCPlayer as BBC iPlayer.

The BBC is also running a competition to revamp the bbc.co.uk 2.0 website, asking the public to redesign the homepage to "exploit the fuctionality and usability of services such as Flickr, YouTube, Technorati and Wikipedia".

At the heart of the play concept is MyBBCPlayer, which will allow the public to download and view BBC programming online and was today rebranded as BBC iPlayer.

"BBC iPlayer is going to offer catch-up television up to seven days after transmission," said Mr Highfield. "At any time you will be able to download any programme from the eight BBC channels and watch it on your PC and, we hope, move it across to your TV set or down to your mobile phone to watch it when you want."

The find concept relates to next-generation search and unlocking the BBC archive. From tomorrow internet users will for the first time be able to search for details of the corporation's entire programme catalogue as far back as 1937.

More Ashley Highfield:
Mix06: Bill Gates, Aber Whitcom, Ashley Highfield and Tim O'Reilly
BBC TV over IP