Embeddable BBC iPlayer could challenge YouTube

There is no sign of anyone being able to challenge YouTube as the default video platform. Barring any radical, unforeseen change (oh wait, that's exactly what the internet is all about), YouTube will (has) become the default "filetype", in much the same way as .pdf or .doc files (new initiatives will only make it more popular). Partly that is due to the ease with which YouTube videos can be embedded by everyone and their mother on their own websites.

The BBC is the only company that has a chance of challenging YouTube for pervasiveness in the UK. The BBC should make its iPlayer easily embeddable (you can embed it already, but not officially):

• The BBC has high quality content that YouTube cannot provide. Currently the BBC uploads content to YouTube, from which YouTube benefits not only on its own site but as those (now YouTube) videos are embedded on other websites. The BBC's content may not be better than YouTube, but it is better and still desirable, and so can find its own market demand.
• The BBC should release the iPlayer on its own, not just as a tool for viewing existing BBC content, but as a video platform for everyone's content. Let people show their own videos using the iPlayer, and upload that content to some subsection of the BBC website. Perhaps distant enough from the main BBC pages as to not compromise that website's integrity, but imagine the appeal of your content being broadcast by the BBC, be that a few levels removed from BBC 1.
• The BBC is in as good a position as any media company to be the platform for online political debate, a role that YouTube currently plays. Yes, there may be accusations of bias, but the alternative platform is American and owned by a company with a well known Democrat bias. Why are Downing Street and Parliament on YouTube and not on a UK platform?

Probably, any such move by the BBC to increase its reach will attract criticism about how it benefits from public funding (especially in online video, where the BBC is free from the pressure of finding those elusive revenues). Budding citizen journalists might be more likely to turn in their online footage into the BBC (with all its prestige, but poor hyperlocal coverage) than into local newspapers (with good hyperlocal coverage but less of the prestige). Media companies targeting hyperlocal content will probably not be happy, but then their contributions to YouTube's popularity will not help them in the long run either.

This is not exactly a groundbreaking suggestion, so I'm guessing that the BBC has thought about all this but the iPlayer is just not technically ready to be released into the wild (much of the BBC's own content is still playing on Real Player rather than iPlayer). However, with YouTube continuing to grow and Guardian Media Group displaying ambition and assuredness in online content, the sooner the BBC can establish itself as a video platform, the better. 

Comments

[daniel]

does any one know how to add a bbc iplayer video onto piczo?