Google’s Latest Competitor - The BBC?
Today the BBC site launches their new homepage and my initial reaction was to wonder if suddenly they might pose a mighty big threat to Google? Bear with me a second while I ramble on about a few things:
The New BBC Homepage
Click on the thumbnail to the right or go and set your own up. Looks pretty doesn’t it?
It’s pretty slick, loads fast and has lots of rich content on the page. My homepage has been Google.co.uk since forever but looking at this almost makes me want to set the BBC page as my homepage. If the search box did something other than search the BBC site (more on this later) I might even switch. Shocking right?! I think I need a lie down.
OK, I’m feeling better now but I’m still impressed by the BBC homepage - not only does it work well, it offers me a huge amount of quality content right there on the page - news, radio, video, pictures. Pretty orange colours. Everything.
So this is a competitor of the Google iGoogle homepage right? Well kind of, I actually think it goes one step further.
The signal to noise ratio has always been a big problem for the internet, that’s what Google does after all - it aims to sift through all the noise to find you some signal. But the BBC homepage goes one step further - it doesn’t find you signal (more on that later), it provides you with signal - between BBC News, BBC Radio, BBC TV you have a large portion of what you need. Talking of video….
iPlayer
In case you’ve had your head buried under the sand (or in case you’re not based in the UK) the BBC iPlayer is a service which allows you to watch any BBC show up to 7 days after it’s broadcast on TV for free online. To be honest I watch very little TV online or offline (other than Family Guy, which incidentally isn’t available through the iplayer for obvious reaonss) so I haven’t been that bothered about the iplayer. Having spent a little time browsing around though I’m incredibly impressed by the quality of the videos and the ease of use of the site. It’s pretty slick and for certain comedy shows it’s going to be much easier to catch them through the iplayer than trying to watch them on TV. (Note: for any US readers we don’t really have Tivo over here so there isn’t the same culture of just recording stuff left right and centre and watching at our leisure.)
Sure, there’s a couple of issues with the service which really should have been fixed by now in my opinion. The URLs are nasty which is pretty annoying and I think stops the shows spreading as easily as they might through facebook, forums and the like. Taking off a load of tracking code crap which gets automatically appended to the URL you’re left with something like this for a particular show URL:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b008ysrg.shtml
Wouldn’t it be handy if you could see which show it was from the URL? Also - since these URLs expire after 7 days, wouldn’t it be handy to have the date in the URL? People would very quickly learn to understand if a BBC iplayer link was still ‘live’ or not.
My second gripe with the iplayer is the lack of RSS feeds. What godly reason is there for not allowing me to subscribe to shows I want to watch via RSS? Seriously that one change would convert me from a ‘that’s nice’ attitude to a ‘use it regularly’ attitude.
As this service gets better and expands this competes with youtube at least on some level.
BBC Search
Wait, you cry - the BBC isn’t a search engine - how can it be a competitor? Well listen closely amigo. Have you tried searching through the BBC site recently? Sure, often the first thing that’s returned is an internal BBC site search but if you narrow the search to the WWW then what do you get?
The answer to this question isn’t clear. The best I could do was find this article from 2005 which showed that under the hood the results were Yahoo-driven but with some tweaks to the algorithm.
Regardless of who powers the results, they’re different from any of the big 4 (Google, Yahoo, Live, Ask) so there’s certainly something going on that’s unique. Of course that’s not all - instead of adverts you get editorialy chosen links. Yipes - a blend of hand-edited search results combined with an algorithm to back them up? Sounds formidable.
Here’s the BBC’s own words on their search results.
Conclusion
So what am I driving at? What I’m saying is that while still inferior in many ways to Google, in the UK the BBC could easily position itself as the defacto homepage to start your browsing and that actually a lot of that browsing will stay on the BBC site. This hurts Google straight off the bat. But combine that with some forward thinking, have the BBC develop their own algorithm (or partner properly with Microhoo!) and position the search box on the BBC homepage as a web search not a BBC search and suddenly you have a search engine capable of taking on Google.
The sheer weight of the BBC brand in the UK (and in fact worldwide) means that they would be trusted overnight. A small amount of branding and positioning for this service and I think the BBC could easily become the second biggest search engine in the UK. That’s not something to be sniffed at!
If you have enjoyed this post you can subscribe to the rss feed to read more about how you can monitor and protect your brand online
Comment link
Patrick Altoft on Wed (27 Feb) @ 5:43 pm
If the search box at the top of the page opened up a new tab with Google results then I would consider switching.
You are right that the BBC could easily get second place, the search volume they already have must put them in the top 5 already(?)
Comment link
Tom Critchlow on Thu (28 Feb) @ 8:39 am
That’s my thinking exactly Patrick - if it was actually a web homepage rather than a BBC homepage it could gain some serious market share.
I’m surprised I haven’t seen BBC search on any UK search engine market share lists already actually.. Might have to look into that.
Comment link
RobBothan on Thu (28 Feb) @ 9:35 am
Maybe that’s the next move - to allow use of widgets a’la google homepage on the bbc homepage.
Really interesting the search engine results are different, and given the independent position of the BBC and that it doesnt neccessarily have to rely on advertising (paid for by license fee) makes it in a formidable position in the UK!
I know i’d trust a BBC editor a lot more than a Google Adword or even something like Mahalo… (sorry Jason!)
Comment link
Tom Critchlow on Thu (28 Feb) @ 9:40 am
I’m not sure that the BBC will go down the route of letting you add external widgets - though I’m sure they’ll expand the available BBC widgets over time.
It’s a scary proposition isn’t it - a mahalo you can trust with significant market share and no advertising!
Comment link
RobBothan on Thu (28 Feb) @ 9:50 am
I’d think that internal departments and certain organisations (like ourselves) would probably be able to gain access (but not everyone). But it’d be down to providing valuable proven use rather than plain brand advertising. But thats my thinking
A scary proposition indeed… miles from DMOZ’s ideals and what bought around Mahalo - the only thing i’d worry about is that BBC editors might not be that web-savy (i think they are - but still)
I’d like to see my RSS feeds on it (i use google homepage at the mo) and then i’d definately switch (afterall i use my firefox google box for searching not my homepage)
Comment link
Andrew Banks on Thu (28 Feb) @ 12:29 pm
It’s highly unlikely that they will compete with Google on any significant level.
Have you actually read the feedback on the BBC blog about the new homepage? 90%+ of people actually dislike it and I for one don’t like the new BBC homepage.
To save repeating myself, have a read of my thoughts at my blog at http://www.good-together.co.uk/index.php/websites/dear-bbc-i-am-not-blind/
Comment link
Gavin Mitchell on Thu (28 Feb) @ 1:41 pm
I could see the Beeb looking more closely at search. If not alone then working with one of the larger search engines.
They’ve definitely got a strong enough brand to pull it off, and that brand is increasingly being associated with online technologies - such as the iPlayer etc.
Comment link
Tom Critchlow on Thu (28 Feb) @ 1:47 pm
Andrew - the vocal ones are always the ones who disapprove of the change. 90% of people who left a comment on that post might dislike it (I’m taking your word for this by the way - I haven’t been through and checked them) but that doesn’t mean overall that people dislike it.
I think we’re talking slightly at cross purposes here anyway - you’re talking just about the new homepage, which I agree has some issues (one of which is just how much real estate that large image takes up) but I’m trying to look past that and try and understand where the BBC are going in the future. I think this signifies a change at the BBC and for the BBC site in general.
The homepage will obviously be a work in progress, and what happens when they get that search box actually performing web search? I think they have the brand the authority to attempt it and if they do I could easily foresee them becoming a serous competitor in the UK.
Comment link
Andrew Banks on Thu (28 Feb) @ 2:18 pm
I think they definitely have the brand power to take the BBC website wherever they want to. But I don’t think taking Google on at search would be beneficial. How would they justify it to the licence fee payers?
They used to have a pure “search the web” option on the BBC homepage and that is now removed.
I’m pretty certain the BBC pose no threat in the paid search arena also as I suspect the BBC’s charter would prevent them from making money from their UK website.
However, the potential the BBC has for search in general is huge. They are one of the experts in searching through various media (be that video, images or sound) as they need that kind of functionality internally. If they could then expose that to the web as a whole (being able to search video by colours, situation, people) would be massively powerful.
Comment link
RobBothan on Thu (28 Feb) @ 2:28 pm
I for one like the BBC page - for example I’m far more interested in news than sport so i’d like to drag n drop my modules (better than tick boxes) and for majority users it’d be far easier to do it this way. Plus the new system allows them to include new modules such as iplayer when they’re up and running.
Lets not forget that its been live in beta for a few months now so they’ll have seen user reaction already and not gone live if they didnt think users would like it.
As to search - I dont think they’d partner with any existing search engine as this could be seen to bias them (eg iplayer is their own work) and the results provided - their reputation is built on that of independence. Whilst paid search would not be of benefit to them if they included search it could be possible to widen the TV license to include net license (i’m sure the govt are thinking of that already) and if they could get the majority of UK users setting it as their homepage then they might succeed.
Comment link
Kimota on Thu (28 Feb) @ 10:39 pm
I’ve had the BBC as my homepage for years and switched over to the Beta version of the home page a couple of months back. There are teething problems with it - and there are certain features I want reinstated from the original home page (the quick links to the listen again feature for example), but it is still the best portal to pull in the essentials every morning - news, search online media, etc.
My friend recently got hired by the Beeb to work on the information architecture of the new site (one of many in a huge team I suspect) and from everything she is saying, the site is going to continue growing and leading the way.
Just wish they’d rethink some of the garish colours from the home page.
Comment link
Graeme Coates on Fri (29 Feb) @ 9:41 am
iPlayer - great idea. Just wish they hadn’t used kontiki as the P2P part of it. At least for me (and several others), the kontiki app won’t quit after closing the iPlayer frontend, resulting in it sitting in the background hogging bandwidth and cpu.
Could be a nasty shock for those on a capped broadband connection when a PC apparently sitting idle manages to use up your bandwidth allowance (upstream counts the same as downstream data).
Plus it’s a real pain in the backside to uninstall - the kontiki P2P app and relevant windows service lingers after uninstalling which is very poor indeed.
Comment link
Tom Critchlow on Fri (29 Feb) @ 10:51 am
In case anyone’s interested I did a test with the BBC web search yesterday and it shows as “search/organic” in google i.e. uncategorised organic search. I see this having a larger search volume than Ask for some of our clients - I wonder what percentage of this is the BBC?
Comment link
Stephen on Fri (29 Feb) @ 3:30 pm
What you have to remember is that if BBC launched a search engine, it will almost definitely be by the commercial arm BBC Worldwide. They wouldn’t have to justify this spend as it isn’t the license fee money that goes towards it. It would also mean that they could make money from it, and it would search not just public content, but all BBC + BBC Worldwide’s content. This includes sites like topgear.com for example which has ads.
The money made from this venture would be pumped back into the BBC for programming, and potentially lowering the license fee amount if it was phenomenally successful.
Comment link
Geld Lenen on Fri (29 Feb) @ 4:31 pm
I don’t think they will be able to compete with Google. Like Patrick said, I (if I’d live in the UK :]) would probably change homepage, because of the nice interface. And if BBC implemented a Google search application, they could make a nice amount of money with their searches!
Comment link
UK SEO Census - 8 Bloggers (And Me) Under the Microscope on Tue (4 Mar) @ 5:36 pm
[…] their best option to capture market share in the UK is to partner with someone. Who? Maybe the bbc, maybe nokia (to capture mobile search), maybe someone else entirely. It’ll be interesting to […]