Les régulateurs français sont désagréables

Facebook already provides what people want. The BBC is redundant in this medium.

In any case, you only have to look at their message board service to see the BBC could never pull it off. 'House rules' like a public school circa 1978, no posts allowed between the hours of 11pm and 8am, new members proactively moderated, 'The BBC is not responsible for external sites' (can't believe they still insist on trotting that one out - as if people think the internet is run by the BBC?) etc.

Facebook and Twitter were used long before TV channels started promoting their own pages. Its easier for viewers to access programmes and channels using a medium they already use, and not having to sign up for another (ie suggestions that BBC should start their own platform). It means people don't have to go out of their way which is the key. Tweeting to @programme or going on facebook.com/programme and writing on their wall is a lot easier than going on the website and navigating your way around until you find an email link. It requires minimal effort, that is the bottom line.

Facebook and Twitter are that prevalent in society it has gone long beyond advertising. They're almost now generic names for social networking. For them to ignore the sites would be ridiculous and a step backwards in a climate where viewership is decreasing and internet usage going up.

I do think Twitter is only so successful due to the celebrity aspect, the same can't be said for Facebook.

given the famed "facebook login" debacle I wouldn't be surprised.

Thing is twitter was as well known service before the BBC started making use of it. I remember Metropol made use of it first for Hillary Twitter during the 2008 US Presidential Election and that was before it became so big over here. It was already big in the states however. If anyone has made twitter big over here it has been individual celebs such as Fry and whilst the BBC may have perhaps helped I cannot see any other way forward to embrace microblogging that to use twitter. There is simply no viable alternative.

Don't forget also, back when Myspace was big the BBC used to plug the myspace profiles of bands and utilise that as a platform for communication.

If anything I feel it demonstrates the failure of email (thanks to spam) as a major external feedback tool. These closed systems work better for the type of feedback the BBC require and that people wish to give to them.

This french action strikes me as more "can't say e-mail as its evil and english" type tripe that they have been known for in the past.

But why... that is what I can't understand. What is the point of Twitter? Twitter didn't invent revolutions you know, people managed to organise them easily enough in the past by word of mouth. The ongoing Arab revolutions were not catalysed by the existence of social media; people have always been social. They are part of a global political sea change that would have occured regardless. As for viewer feedback, well okay, but it just smacks of needing the comfort of your 'followers' there to give you the self-confidence to say what you want to say. There's a lot of showing off as well, in terms of talking to celebrities and so on.

I just don't get the real point of it. What I do know is that Twitter is worth an absolute fortune, and the BBC, in my opinion, has been instrumental in building it up. Yes, other broadcasters promote Twitter as well, but the BBC are seriously rampant for it, and I don't even watch the BBC that often so goodness knows how bad it really is.

Where's your account then? Who do you follow?

Thing with twitter is it often fails for people who do not give it the time required to properly "get" it. It's not about the "just having a sandwich" type updates, but is about the potential to have conversations with all sorts of people you'd not normally meet or interact with. The commonly held believe that just because its short means its inane is a falsity. Being verbose is easy, being succinct isn't.

It's when you're watching something like Question Time and watch the stream of thoughts about the show from other people on the hastag, or once you've got to know people, your own stream, that it comes alive and that is the power of the thing.

Quite how they'll make money is anyone's guess, all the "value" of the company is currently theoretical and probably based more on the idea that google or microsoft or even facebook will snap it up.

However I very much doubt that the BBC has had anything of the sort of influence on twitter usage you're implying.

Are they simply passing the time or do they actually, really, honestly care?



I don't think Twitter will ever make serious money. There just isn't enough advertising spend to go round on the internet these days in order to sustain a huge new website like Twitter. Forum ad revenue is notoriously low because forum members are essentially busy talking, so it's not unreasonable to predict that tweeters would pay even less attention to advertising. I can see it eventually being nationalised in some way, to be honest...

You what?

By whom?

given that they're also watching television at the same time I suspect a bit of both.

The thing that strikes me that that is most evident of (the users of) twitter being the leader, not the BBC, is that several BBC shows have had to give in to the branding devised #BBCprogrammename type hastags and just use the nice short ones already on use in twitter, such as #bbcqt.

I completely agree with Gavin. Is it just me that thinks this thread is just Chie revelling in the chance to BBC-bash?



The lazy route? In times where the BBC has to cut significant amounts of money in order to survive, using websites like Facebook and Twitter is an obvious, small solution. It's also much better than through their own websites; people use Twitter and Facebook not just to interact with a TV Programme so everything is in one place, often on the same news feed, so if I want to interact with BBC Breakfast and Doctor Who for example, I don't need to go trawling through each of their individual websites to find 'Have your say' sections whilst refreshing each one individually. Social networking sites are much more competent.



Agreed. I don't think Twitter and Facebook are rammed down your throat on the BBC in any way in the programmes I watch.

People are exaggerating the issue here. Yes, they are good in moderation and I think at the moment it is moderation. It seems typical of the French government recently to take a small problem and rather than dealing with it sensibly, they just go and ban it.

meanwhile, here in Brazil, a couple of months ago, Rede Globo, the nation's leading television network, has banned advertisers from even mentioning Twitter, Facebook, orkut (the Google-owned social networking service that's huge here in Brazil) or any other social networking services. unless... they pay extra to the network simply for mentioning that service.
as if Twitter and Facebook did primetime commercials.

So once in a blue moon we have a critical discussion about a single tiny aspect of the BBC, and you are condemning it as wholesale BBC bashing? I wouldn't care if the BBC was shut down tomorrow if I'm being perfectly honest, but I certainly don't revel in bashing it.



There are so many things wrong with that sentence...



Okay. I'm out.