This is in response to this encouraging post by Tod Maffin on “Inside the CBC” in which he hints at some social media plans at the CBC. (I’ve cross-posted in the comments field)
Here are 19 things the CBC can do to improve its online offerings…
1) Read and learn from the BBC’s “Fifteen Web Principles” - http://www.tomski.com/archive/new_archive/000063.html
2) Encourage mash-ups like the BBC has done. Let us play with your content and learn from what your audience does with it. Give your audience a long leash for experimentation and do your best to foster that innovation. See here: http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services and http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/
3) Engage with your listeners like the TTC seems to be doing with their riders: http://transitcamp.org/about
4) Set the stage for hyperlocal news by geocoding/geotagging all your stories. You may not be sure what you will do with it now, but trust me, there will be a use. See here for the kind of newsmaps that can result: http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/map . Also note what Flickr is doing with their phototagging.
5) Move to a system where every news item becomes a “post”, complete with text, and audio/video where appropriate. This makes it linkable, commentable, and bloggable. That would let me consume an hourly newscast in so many different ways.
6) Make every page commentable. Seems like that is already part of your list. Check.
7) REALLY open up your archives. This is Long Tail stuff. I love the Gzowski tribute page and would love the ability to really dive back into your stuff. See BBC Backstage (http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/) for their thinking. Heck, talk to the Beeb to learn more.
8) Build a great search engine for searching this archive. Make pieces in your archive findable through Google.
9) Continue to shine the light on your processes by letting your journalists/editors/etc. really blog (see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors). The “Letters from the Editor in Chief” are a good start.
10) Continue the kind of independent blogging you are letting Tod Maffin do.
11) Set up a french equivalent as well.
12) Get rid of real player feeds and switch to podcasts/mp3s.
13) Continue to improve your RSS feeds by putting the full text in your feeds.
14) Take a bow for the good stuff you are doing: strong regional RSS feeds, putting up video newscasts, steadily improving program-centric pages.
15) Don’t ever, ever, ever do something as stupid as let your site go down for several days. Not that you’d ever let that happen, right?
16) Keep improving your mobile content. I like it, and I read it every day.
17) Think about radical things like podcasts voicemail comments. See here: http://blogs.reuters.com/2007/01/29/drone-drone-drone/
18) Do a better job of using the Web when you do investigative journalism. See: http://www.cbcwatch.ca/?q=node/view/2197
19) Keep asking questions.
Any one else want to add to this list?
