3pointD.com

The very interesting news of yesterday afternoon was the the BBC’s online offerings will soon undergo a major overhaul, one that will see the Beeb’s Web site retooled to focus on, “user-generated content, including blogs and home videos, with the aim of creating a public service version of MySpace.com,” according to The Guardian newspaper. The BBC’s own announcement is here., with a few more releases and presentations available at this link. [From the Social Software Weblog, via Glitchy.]

Is this the model for next-gen media companies? Could be. What’s encouraging is that the BBC already has one of the clearest and easiest-to-use portals of any media company out there, even if it doesn’t include many 2.0-style offerings. What’s also encouraging is that they see user-created-content as a public service. Though most 2.0 services are available for free, it’s nice to see a government-run media concern take on the task of providing ways for people to have a presence online.

The question is, can they compete with what’s already out there? Why create your own MySpace when there are already 70 million people using the original? Wouldn’t it be better to create hooks from the BBC site out to sites like MySpace or Blogger. What if there were a site that let you aggregate all your own content in one place, almost like Ziki, maybe, only better? You choose your own tools, the site lets you put them together in the network. Then things start to get interesting.