Saturday 7 February 2009

Finding music on bbc.co.uk

Thinking about our music offering on bbc.co.uk, and changes which are coming soon, here's a list of ways in which we could be helping people find music, or music content, on bbc.co.uk. Some of these are possible now, most are not. If we can offer these as automated feeds, we really will be maximising routes to content. Which means, of course, that more people will consume more content, and bbc.co.uk will have improved it's utility considerably.

Tracklistings. All music shows have, or will have, lists of music played on the programme. These will soon become clickable, taking you to the relevant artist page

Now playing. What music is the BBC playing right now? An aggregation of all our music stations live output.

Recently played. We should be listing all artists that have been played recently across BBC radio. We need to define what "recently" means, and in the future get all our stations having live music information. This is not currently the case. By network, and across all networks.

Most searched for artists. Which artists are people searching for on bbc.co.uk?

Breaking artists. Which artists played recently on BBC radio are brand new, i.e. haven't been played before on the BBC?

Most recommended. Which artists are being most heavily recommended by BBC talent?

Most recent BBC session. Which artists have recently performed live exclusively for the BBC?

Most recent BBC interview. Which artists have recently been interviewed on BBC radio or TV?

Most recent BBC documentary. Which artists have recently featured in a BBC documentary?

Artists quoted in SMS sent to the BBC. Which artists have featured most in text messages sent in to the BBC?

Artists being discussed on bbc.co.uk. Which artists are being discussed, commented on, rated, or added to personal profiles?

Artist A-Z. Complete list of all artists played on BBC radio over a certain time period

Charts. e.g. Top 40 singles and albums, music genre charts

News. Artists mentioned in recent news stories published on bbc.co.uk, and elsewhere

I'll be adding more to this list over the coming days/weeks, so feel free to add other possibilities.