BBC revamps its online offering 

The British Broadcasting Service (BBC) is revamping its portal. Meenakshi T
Gupta, Publicist, BBC (South Asia region), informed that the portal would be
operational from July 23. The latest URL will read www.bbcnews.com, instead of
the earlier www.news.bbc.co.uk. And as the change in the URL suggests, the
website will now have a global news-base and perspective; dubbed as the World
Edition, with the opening page coming with the option of opting for either
global or UK news.

Sanjoy Majumder, a correspondent with BBC News Online, said that the revamp
of the portal is a pre-emptive move keeping in mind the development prospects of
tri-media in the Asia Pacific region. "In UK, we have digital TV and BBC
Radio. We also offer news on handhelds or mobile phones. And of course, there is
the news portal. In India, the technology needed for such a comprehensive news
package is yet to take off. But within the next five to seven years it should,
and we want to be the first ones out here once that happens."

How different will be the portal from other similar news websites? Majumder
clarified that the BBC portal will not be purely text driven but will be
multimedia oriented, with a very high audio-video and graphic content.

Unlike the rediff.coms, to begin with, the BBC World would have a single site
with links to various regions like say Africa or the Asia Pacific. But at some
stage, plans for different country-specific sites cannot be ruled out.

It may be recalled that BBC has the second largest bureau in India after
America. So what about a site dedicated to India only? "There may be a
dedicated website, but it would depend on Internet penetration and broadband
development," answered Majumder. "As of now there is no technology
back-up to provide services like news on PDAs or Digital TVs.

WAP in India is yet to catch up too."

It is interesting to note that at the moment users in UK cannot access BBC
World as it is a commercial site. BBC is essentially a non-commercial service in
the UK, running purely on tax-payers money.

Currently BBC has four servers, two in UK and two based out of New York. At
some stage, a server in India cannot be ruled out. "Though, it is entirely
a management decision, and too early to comment upon immediately," added
Majumder.

After the new portal comes into being, whenever one hits the BBC site, one
will be connected to the UK or World edition according to the initial choice.
There are options to change editions too, for eg a user in UK can go in for the
world edition if he so chooses. Another interesting option to watch out for
would be the search engine, allowing the user to search both the Web and the BBC
website for a particular item.

The BBC Online division, though a separate leg of the BBC, forms part of the
core BBC team and exhaustive training had been imparted to the correspondents on
internet reporting.

The software used is developed in-house by BBC. The logistics is simple. A
correspondent, say in Jaipur, e-mails a news item to the Delhi office, which is
then authenticated and uploaded on the site. The entire process takes on an
average ten minutes, informed Majumder. Normal phone lines are used to connect
with London, or an ISDN line, which is faster. The BBC newsportal has won the
BAFTA three years in a row. Looks like it is going for a fourth consecutive win!

Asim Raina & Sudarshana Banerjee

(CNS)