Paradigm lost

Further to my earlier comments about print and online media colliding I read an interesting article in the RSA Journal by Tim Jones of Innovaro.

In his piece he looks at paradigm changes in the economy and points to the BBC as it seeks to compete with the likes of Google TV, Wikipedia and flickr during the second digital wave. Having been at the forefront of the first digital wave, the BBC is pursuing an alternative option for the emerging space.

As well as focusing internal resources on key new technologies, the BBC Innovation Team has embraced the principles of open innovation and made much of its content available to outside user communities. Through linking to Google’s freely available programming interfaces, initiatives such as backstage.bbc.co.uk - I never even knew this existed - have enabled core BBC content to be used by online developers so they can build new applications and integrate them into other websites.

Jones says that the BBC, fully aware of probable disruptions likely to affect the media sector, it is acting as a catalyst for disruptive innovation, whether generated internally or externally.

As disruption occurs at an ever faster rate, more companies seeking to play a role in delivering or exploiting the potential from major disruptions are recognising that they require better insight in order to do so. The approaches used by the BBC and Rupert Murdoch mesh nicely with the open source media.