TWO applications (apps) developed in Africa are set to help the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) consolidate its position as one of Africa’s most trusted and used news sources, BBC digital development editor Dimitry Shishkin said on Friday.
BBC research released at mid-year showed the corporation’s weekly global audience is around 308-million people. The BBC World Service’s audience increased by 10% in its first year of licence fee funding and now stands at 210-million. The research showed the countries where the audience increases for World Service English were highest were Nigeria, Tanzania, the US and Pakistan.
The two apps were developed at "hackathons" — events at which computer programmers and others involved in software and hardware development, collaborate intensively on software projects in competition with other teams — in Cape Town and Nairobi, Kenya. Both apps were developed in conjunction with the broadcaster’s digital innovations team, Connected Studio, and are to be piloted via BBC Taster, an innovations test site.
"We need to take up to the fact that people on digital (platforms) consume news differently," said Shishkin. The two apps — both "light" in data use — were created to appeal to the young, and take advantage of the way in which African audiences have "leapfrogged" to digital-first news consumption ahead of their developed world counterparts.
BBC Minute CatchUP, developed by social enterprise lab RLabs at the Cape Town hackathon, is a simple media player designed to "sit within any online page that will let users hear and share the latest version of BBC Minute", the BBC said in a statement. BBC Minute is a news website providing 60 second news bulletins. It is updated half-hourly.
BBC Drop, developed in Nairobi by technology start up Onagir, is a responsive website showing users news content specifically tailored to them. "It works sort of like (online dating service) Tinder," said Skishkin, demonstrating that users can swipe left or right to indicate their news preferences. The app will "learn" a user’s specific tastes and begin to tailor the news feed accordingly.
The BBC wanted to increase its global audience from 2011’s 308-million to 500-million by 2022, said Shishkin. This year the BBC had already launched its Africa edition of the bbc.com website, and the Africa Live page on the BBC News website. Both provide dedicated "digital spaces" where those interested can find African news, in English, French, Arabic, Hausa, Swahili, Somali, Kirundi and Kinyarwanda.
"We have 150-plus people on the ground," said Shishkin. "Instead of running a stream of editorial content (only), they Tweet, post pictures and video…. It’s going very well, we have doubled our audience since our launch in April."
Users’ activities online offered the BBC unprecedented insight into how much people tend to read of any one article, how many pictures are optimal, and what type of news people want to consume.
"I am a great believer in mixed content and format," said Shishkin. "If you want to cover something and the audience is not usually responsive to it in print, why not cover it in pictures?"
An example of this, flighted on BBC Taster, was a five-part series that used cartoons to tell the story of how West Africa’s Guinea-Bissau is used by South American drug cartels as a route to smuggle cocaine to Europe, and the impact that trade has on the people of Guinea-Bissau. "We are always on our toes, finding out new ways to reach our audience. That is what will differentiate us from the rest," said Shishkin.
View BBC Hooked here
Picture: REUTERS/EDGAR SU
TWO applications (apps) developed in Africa are set to help the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) consolidate its position as one of Africa’s most trusted and used news sources, BBC digital development editor Dimitry Shishkin said on Friday.
BBC research released at mid-year showed the corporation’s weekly global audience is around 308-million people. The BBC World Service’s audience increased by 10% in its first year of licence fee funding and now stands at 210-million. The research showed the countries where the audience increases for World Service English were highest were Nigeria, Tanzania, the US and Pakistan.
The two apps were developed at "hackathons" — events at which computer programmers and others involved in software and hardware development, collaborate intensively on software projects in competition with other teams — in Cape Town and Nairobi, Kenya. Both apps were developed in conjunction with the broadcaster’s digital innovations team, Connected Studio, and are to be piloted via BBC Taster, an innovations test site.
"We need to take up to the fact that people on digital (platforms) consume news differently," said Shishkin. The two apps — both "light" in data use — were created to appeal to the young, and take advantage of the way in which African audiences have "leapfrogged" to digital-first news consumption ahead of their developed world counterparts.
BBC Minute CatchUP, developed by social enterprise lab RLabs at the Cape Town hackathon, is a simple media player designed to "sit within any online page that will let users hear and share the latest version of BBC Minute", the BBC said in a statement. BBC Minute is a news website providing 60 second news bulletins. It is updated half-hourly.
BBC Drop, developed in Nairobi by technology start up Onagir, is a responsive website showing users news content specifically tailored to them. "It works sort of like (online dating service) Tinder," said Skishkin, demonstrating that users can swipe left or right to indicate their news preferences. The app will "learn" a user’s specific tastes and begin to tailor the news feed accordingly.
The BBC wanted to increase its global audience from 2011’s 308-million to 500-million by 2022, said Shishkin. This year the BBC had already launched its Africa edition of the bbc.com website, and the Africa Live page on the BBC News website. Both provide dedicated "digital spaces" where those interested can find African news, in English, French, Arabic, Hausa, Swahili, Somali, Kirundi and Kinyarwanda.
"We have 150-plus people on the ground," said Shishkin. "Instead of running a stream of editorial content (only), they Tweet, post pictures and video…. It’s going very well, we have doubled our audience since our launch in April."
Users’ activities online offered the BBC unprecedented insight into how much people tend to read of any one article, how many pictures are optimal, and what type of news people want to consume.
"I am a great believer in mixed content and format," said Shishkin. "If you want to cover something and the audience is not usually responsive to it in print, why not cover it in pictures?"
An example of this, flighted on BBC Taster, was a five-part series that used cartoons to tell the story of how West Africa’s Guinea-Bissau is used by South American drug cartels as a route to smuggle cocaine to Europe, and the impact that trade has on the people of Guinea-Bissau. "We are always on our toes, finding out new ways to reach our audience. That is what will differentiate us from the rest," said Shishkin.
View BBC Hooked here
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