h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*gets the speculation brush out again*

It would probably be OK for the BBC to sell WAP content in other countries, so long as its outside UK borders it can be as comercial as it wants.

I think UKgold et al can get away with it because they show older programs which the BBC are very unlikely to repeat.

There is no real difference in having a website or a WAPsite, but because WAP is view through a phone it is often seen transmitting information directly to each user. Therefore bypassing the usual competition of papers/TV/radio/internet news products. Where as it is only really viewing the web through a different toy.

I think we can all agree thats its not fair to stop the BBC expanding in this direction. It would be good to have someone like the BBC there to set a standard that others can try to exceed. And as Mark said, h2g2 may not be covered by the ban. So we'll just have to wait and see.

I've read the thread along here concerning the disappearance of h2g2 on the move, and the discussion of why h2g2 can't be offered as a WAP service, but personally i think it would be much more beneficial to h2g2 if they were to look further to the future, which in terms of mobile technology really means 3G. Now i don't know how this technology works, nor the capabilities of it, but i suspect that it will enable people to view the web much as if they were at home on their PC, rather than the cut down or truncated versions accessed via WAP. Without going into the legal technicalities behind whether it would be anticompetitive of the BBC or not i think it would be well worth the h2g2 looking into the possibilities of an h2g2 tailored for 3G. I believe with current phone technology the mobile operators (Cellnet, Vodafone etc etc) can triangulate where your phone is being used from to within 1/4 of a mile or so. With 3G it should be possible to instantly pinpoint the location of the users phone to an accuracy of a few feet.

As a content provider h2g2 has a huge wealth of resources, quite a lot of which is about particular places and "things to do when in Brighton" or wherever. If the phonecompanies relayed the location of a person on to h2g2, could it be possible that someone could simply access h2g2 and have a "what's nearby" button, and up pops any articles which mention that area.

I suppose the ultimate along those lines would be to have articles in h2g2 which were about specific areas to have a postcode reference within them, maybe just the first few digits (i.e. for me CH48). A step further would be to have the exact address of recommended places embedded into the article and then have some form of automatic linking to s site like multimap. A user could get out there phone, hit h2g2, search for things to do, come up with a list of things in the area, decide they like the sound of activity x, click the link and up would pop a map showing directions of how to get to activity x from their current location.

Ok, so most of this may seem a bit far fetched, i'm guessing especially when you see budget figures for something like h2g2 (not that i have). But h2g2 has a huge advantage in that it already has large amounts of content available, if the BBC could be persuaded to actually put some money into the project (I suspect it would have to be some quite seriously large amounts) then by getting in early h2g2 could have a huge edge of much of its competition.

But i suppose this brings back the question of the BBC being anti competitive. My only real thoughts on that is that the vast majority of the articles on h2g2 are supplied by volunteers, surely this could lead to the possibility of finding loopholes in the rules over being anticompetitive? Afterall the BBC is only providing a channel through which the general public can air their thoughts.

I suppose all i'm really trying to say is that although i can see it might require a lot of foresight if the BBC were to latch on to the potential of h2g2, and were to start talking to the mobile phone operators and other people about possible co-operation over 3G access to h2g2, and they were to start doing that now, then by the time 3G arrives h2g2 could be all set up and ready to be an incredibly powerful tool, even more so than it already is.

I totally agree with Mr. Purcell. With wap support the guide was how it should be..accesible anywhere with coverage.

bad move, beeb