Round up: history of BBC Backstage
Post categories: innovation
| 16:03 UK time, Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Back in October it was announced that BBC Backstage was to close.
Well that's happening today. But not without a celebration of Backstage's history.
Jemima Kiss on the Guardian's PDA blog: "BBC Backstage: The end of five years of hackery, mischief - and true innovation":
Originally conceived as a way of 'getting the BBC's data out', it was based around the Backstage website which offered a range of APIs for BBC services and content, documentation about experimental projects and later organised large-scale hack events, where external developers and designers would intensively code and compete to build yet more experimental tools.
There's an ebook "Hacking The BBC: A Backstage Retrospective" available here:
This ebook is a snapshot of some of the projects and events that Backstage was involved in, from its launch at Open Tech 2005, through the triumph of Hack Day 2007 and the shot-for-web R&DTV, to current visualisation project DataArt. We take a diversion to Bangladesh to see how a Backstage hacker helped the World Service keep reporting through the horrendous Cyclone Sidr, and look at the impact of the 'playground' servers, used inside the BBC.
Front cover of BBC Backstage ebook. Design by Nicola Rowlands
And finally on the BBC Backstage blog itself:
"It's been an amazing five years but finally the servers are powering down on the backstage.bbc.co.uk (to be official) project.The legacy of backstage will live on..."
Nick Reynolds is Social Media Executive, BBC Online
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