The BBC's massively popular Strictly Come Dancing show is expected to be among the first of its programmes to pioneer new social media applications in its online content.
It is part of a much wider move to integrate more social media capability into all of the corporation’s online content
The BBC is planning a radical relaunch of its website to include more social media, according to the Guardian.
BBC sources told it that the new-look site will launch by March 2010.
Anthony Rose, the BBC’s controller of Vision and Online, at first declined to reveal specific details, but he did say that social media would play a big part in the relaunch of the BBC’s family of websites.
He explained that the BBC is not only working on a new homepage and the underlying hosting platform, but his team is currently researching “what the next generation in social media will be”.
He confirmed that the BBC is planning several innovations to the site: “Among them for example, is the plan to enable users to comment on particular moments while watching and see what other users said about the same moment or simply rate moments with ‘Boo!’, ‘Good!’ or ‘Gosh!’.”
He also confirmed the development of an open version of the successful iPlayer, which will allow third-party platforms to embed BBC content while it remains on the BBC site.
Rose also said there are plans for the BBC to open up and work together with third-party platforms such as MySpace to allow users to link to recommendations and even include content from outside, delivering a personalised feed when you return to it.
The BBC has also been planning radical changes in the navigation design of its news sites. These are expected to underline that the site – which attracts 10 million users a week – covers breaking news, and adds 500 stories a day as well as a lot of local content. The relaunch is also said to be aiming to help them find this information more easily.
It is suggested that, while previous relaunches have only concentrated on minor tweaks to BBC online content, this time will see a complete overhaul of its services.