What's happened to BBC News?

This morning on the BBC News homepage at least three prominent stories are promoting BBC tv and radio programmes - here, here and here.

To my taste all interesting and worthy pieces, but it opens up a question about the nature of the BBC News brand. Increasingly it's being used to extend BBC output from airwaves onto the net.

Some would argue that this is harmless. It's not much different, after all, from the softer news focus of something like Breakfast on BBC One, which frequently puffs other BBC programming.

And yet there is something unsettling about the 'impartial' BBC News machine being used as a promotional tool for other parts of the Corporation. At a low levels this may be acceptable, but in recent months I've noticed more and more examples cropping up.

The solution, I would argue, is not to stop doing it - that would be a shameful waste - but rather to establish a 'Features' brand online distinct from BBC News. The new brand would signal to users that such features are not quite the same as a regular news.

Moreover, such a brand could provide useful focus internally. Currently there is lack of clarity concerning which BBC division is responsible for online content that isn't news/sport/weather. A BBC Features brand would help force BBC departments to present a unified, single, offering to users.

How Google+ can beat Facebook

For a while I’ve been thinking Facebook might just be a bubble close to bursting.

My opinion was not changed when a close friend informed me on a train ride yesterday that he recently deleted his account. It was privacy wot done it for him; caught out by the jumble of close friends, work colleagues and who-knows-who-else ending up on his Friends list.

I’ve tinkered around with Google+ and come up with a shopping list of things that would make this promising product something that can really take on the Facebook-Twitter duopoly.

Before I get on to this wish-list, though, it's worth mentioning some of the good stuff already in Google’s beta.

• It’s a clean design with a more grown-up feel: more a publishing platform for adults, less a kids’ game. And Facebook apps wind me up. I just don’t want to be Monster-Twiddle-Hugged by a vague acquaintance wanting to impose their poor taste in software on unsuspecting ‘friends’. Facebook apps are more likely annoying clutter than anything useful (Apple beware). I don’t want Facebook IM or email and all that other functionality cluttering up their interface. They may want to take over the world, but I just want to be left alone to do my thing, thank you very much.

• Circles. Facebook may have introduced ‘groups’ but the concept of divvying-up your contacts is core to Google Plus. I want control over the stuff I publish and decide exactly who gets to see what. Google is flexible in this respect, seamlessly moving from ‘open’ to ‘closed’ networks. Facebook much less so.

• I never liked the Facebook wall. Google Plus doesn’t have one. Yippie!

I could go on. Lots of nice integration - not least uploading photos directly from your phone - but let’s move on. What are the weaknesses: what needs improving, which features are missing?

• I found the ‘pictures’ side of things in need of better integration. Google pinged me between Google Plus, Picasa albums and ‘Google Pictures’, while giving me the option to use Picnik. A strangely schizophrenic user-experience all round. I’ve heard Picasa is to be rebranded Google Pictures, so fixing the issue may be in hand.

• Better integration with Google Contacts and Calendar. It strikes me the ‘groups’ I set up in contacts map more-or-less directly against my ‘circles’ in Google. Ideally, contacts and circles would sync, with profiles updating automatically. Will somebody please release me from the boring tyranny of updating telephone numbers and addresses.

• Facebook and Twitter newsfeed integration into the Google+ interface. I want a single newsfeed with everything on it. Freelance developers are having a stab with the G++ plugin and suchlike. This functionality needs to be integrated into the core product though.

• Ditto for my own posts/status updates. There needs to be really elegant integration with Twitter and Facebook so Google’s ‘share’ button seamlessly publishes to other platforms.

With all that, I would happily leave my Twitter and Facebook accounts semi-dormant. I would use Google + as my only day-to-day interface with stuff being sent to/from the other platforms from there.

Finally – and perhaps more important than any technical innovation – Google needs to stay on the right side of public opinion vis-a-vis privacy. This won’t guarantee them poll position on the social media grid, but one can be sure anyone falling foul of this is doomed to crash out of the race.