Power to the Users

Pete Clifton looked like he could hurt people – and probably has. As head of BBC News Interactive I imagine this has come in useful.

In his quick-step no-messing style he told us straight that the User was central to how a website should operate - not in a Daniel Meadows “Power to the People” way, but in a “give the people what they want and they will give you what you want” way.

The BBC website will accordingly become a more personalised domain. We will have increased customisation options, links outside the BBC, a pure User Generated Content section called Your BBC News – basically more control.

This will equal success. In a world where so much power has been taken out of our hands due to the Tony Blair Nanny Service, we are desperately searching for ways to assert control over our own lives. The Internet is as good a place to start as any.

Ofcourse, we can only control what they want us to control, only see the content they want to provide, but this doesn’t make the initiative pointless. We will benefit from having a fine-tuned news experience that will allow us to engage quickly and efficiently, which is what the Internet is all about.

Critics will claim it is a publicity stunt – giving us a bread roll and calling it a burger – but this would be unfair. A move towards handing over control of the content to the User might not be revolutionary, but it is by no means insignificant.