Ten days ago, I noted that the BBC was going to pour petrol on their RSS efforts. Today, the official announcement came out. The license terms are reasonable, if still a bit long. I wonder if Creative Commons has an appropriate license which fits the desired needs here? I’ve often wondered why CC doesn’t expand its efforts further… I think a few more machine-readable licenses which are less antagonistic to commercial enterprises would offer some comfort to those who want to encourage responsible use/re-use of content. But that’s a topic for another time.
A tidy stat from the BBC article:
Mr Clifton [Pete Clifton, BBC News website editor] said that RSS had already proved to be a big driver of traffic to the website.
Figures for April 2005 showed that 18 million click-throughs – the number of hits generated by links to the site – were driven by the feeds to the news and sport websites.
Please tell us the breakdown between news and sports… please?
The revolution, which Clifton alluded to in his earlier note, comes from backstage. Bravo. From Ben Hammersley:
It’s actually a symbol of something much much bigger: it’s laying down the gauntlet for the rest of the world. It highlights the point that on the internet, hiding your content is suicide. It says that you can either open up, and we can all flourish together; or you can remain closed, and die alone.
Nothing like a bit of melodrama to make a point, but I appreciate the thrust.