BBC Networking Club
The BBC Networking club, 1994
The service's original home was www.bbcnc.org.uk (the "nc" standing for "networking club") launched on 11 May 1994 as a paid subscription service. For a joining fee of £25 and a monthly subscription of £12, members of the club were given access to an early type of social networking site featuring a bulletin board for sharing information and real-time conversation, along with a dialup internet connection service.[8]
Within 12 months, the BBC offered "auntie" on-line discussion groups; web pages for select web-related programs and BBC departments; free web pages for associate members; and an internet connection service www.bbc.co.uk [9] was introduced in 1996 though the old address also remained active for some time afterwards.
BBC Online
BBC website as it appeared in 1997
The BBC Director General John Birt sought government approval to direct licence fee revenue into the service, describing planned BBC internet services as the “third medium” joining the BBC's existing TV and Radio networks, achieving a change in the BBC Charter. This led to the official launch of BBC Online at the www.bbc.co.uk address in December 1997.
For a time, www.bbc.co.uk was used for the organisation's corporate and educational site, while entertainment-based content appeared on www.beeb.com. The two sites were merged in 1998 to become BBC Online,[10] at www.bbc.co.uk. By December 1998, the BBC Homepage was being described as "your gateway to 200 sites and 25,000 pages" [11]
In 1999, the BBC bought the www.bbc.com domain name for $375,000, previously owned by Boston Business Computing,[12] but the price of this purchase was not revealed until 6 years later.[13] As of 2005, www.bbcnc.org.uk no longer exists. The beeb.com address now redirects to the BBC Shop website run by BBC Worldwide, at www.bbcshop.com.
BBCi
BBCi website navbar, 2004
In 2001 BBC Online was rebranded as BBCi. The BBCi name was conceived as an umbrella brand for all the BBC's digital interactive services across web, digital teletext, interactive TV and on mobile plaftorms.[14][15] The use of letter "i" prefixes and suffixes to denote information technology or interactivity was very much in vogue at this time, according to the BBC, the "i" in BBCi stood for "interactivity" as well as "innovation".[16]
As part of the rebrand, BBC website pages all displayed a standard navigation bar across the top of the screen, offering a category-based navigation: Categories, TV, Radio, Communicate, Where I Live, A-Z Index and a search.[17] The navbar was designed to offer a similar navigation system to the i-bar on BBCi interactive television.
bbc.co.uk
The BBC homepage on March 2010.
After three years of consistent use across different platforms, the BBC began to drop the BBCi brand gradually; on 6 May 2004, the BBC website was renamed bbc.co.uk, after the main URL used to access the site.[18] Interactive TV services continued under the BBCi brand until it was dropped completely in 2008. The BBC's online video player, the iPlayer has, however, retained an i-prefix in its branding.
On 14 December 2007, a beta version of a new bbc.co.uk homepage was launched, with the ability to customise the page by adding, removing and rearranging different categories, such as 'News', 'Weather' and 'Entertainment'. The widget-based design was inspired by sites such as Facebook and iGoogle.[19] The new homepage also had a simple searchbox taskbar with BBC clock from the 1970s as well as a box containing featured content of the website. The new BBC homepage left beta stage on Wednesday, 27 February 2008 to serve as the new BBC Homepage under the same URL as the previous version did.
On the 30 January 2010, the current homepage was available as a beta version,[20] and by May 2010 the homepage was replaced by the newer one. This new homepage expanded on the modules idea and the customisation theme. The website allowed certain themes that interested the viewer to be tracked, via a new module. It also included a new 'Media Zone' where featured content could be displayed. The header was again changed to include the headings: Home, News, Sport, Weather, iPlayer, TV, Radio and more. This new header was included across the entire website, however since the launch of the new BBC news website, the header may be changed once again. Despite the cosmetic appearance of the relaunch, the new website was actually relaunched using a completely different operating system. In October 2010, the new style of header, seen with the new BBC news website was launched across the whole website, starting off with some of the larger, not obvious, sites, such as Doctor Who, first before relaunching all of the sites, including the homepage with the new look. This new style of header included the headings as before, but with the search box redesigned and aligned right, as with the links which are significantly smaller. Other links, such as BBC id login and mobile versions of the website also appear on the header, just to the right of the smaller BBC logo.
The BBC Networking club, 1994
The service's original home was www.bbcnc.org.uk (the "nc" standing for "networking club") launched on 11 May 1994 as a paid subscription service. For a joining fee of £25 and a monthly subscription of £12, members of the club were given access to an early type of social networking site featuring a bulletin board for sharing information and real-time conversation, along with a dialup internet connection service.[8]
Within 12 months, the BBC offered "auntie" on-line discussion groups; web pages for select web-related programs and BBC departments; free web pages for associate members; and an internet connection service www.bbc.co.uk [9] was introduced in 1996 though the old address also remained active for some time afterwards.
BBC Online
BBC website as it appeared in 1997
The BBC Director General John Birt sought government approval to direct licence fee revenue into the service, describing planned BBC internet services as the “third medium” joining the BBC's existing TV and Radio networks, achieving a change in the BBC Charter. This led to the official launch of BBC Online at the www.bbc.co.uk address in December 1997.
For a time, www.bbc.co.uk was used for the organisation's corporate and educational site, while entertainment-based content appeared on www.beeb.com. The two sites were merged in 1998 to become BBC Online,[10] at www.bbc.co.uk. By December 1998, the BBC Homepage was being described as "your gateway to 200 sites and 25,000 pages" [11]
In 1999, the BBC bought the www.bbc.com domain name for $375,000, previously owned by Boston Business Computing,[12] but the price of this purchase was not revealed until 6 years later.[13] As of 2005, www.bbcnc.org.uk no longer exists. The beeb.com address now redirects to the BBC Shop website run by BBC Worldwide, at www.bbcshop.com.
BBCi
BBCi website navbar, 2004
In 2001 BBC Online was rebranded as BBCi. The BBCi name was conceived as an umbrella brand for all the BBC's digital interactive services across web, digital teletext, interactive TV and on mobile plaftorms.[14][15] The use of letter "i" prefixes and suffixes to denote information technology or interactivity was very much in vogue at this time, according to the BBC, the "i" in BBCi stood for "interactivity" as well as "innovation".[16]
As part of the rebrand, BBC website pages all displayed a standard navigation bar across the top of the screen, offering a category-based navigation: Categories, TV, Radio, Communicate, Where I Live, A-Z Index and a search.[17] The navbar was designed to offer a similar navigation system to the i-bar on BBCi interactive television.
bbc.co.uk
The BBC homepage on March 2010.
After three years of consistent use across different platforms, the BBC began to drop the BBCi brand gradually; on 6 May 2004, the BBC website was renamed bbc.co.uk, after the main URL used to access the site.[18] Interactive TV services continued under the BBCi brand until it was dropped completely in 2008. The BBC's online video player, the iPlayer has, however, retained an i-prefix in its branding.
On 14 December 2007, a beta version of a new bbc.co.uk homepage was launched, with the ability to customise the page by adding, removing and rearranging different categories, such as 'News', 'Weather' and 'Entertainment'. The widget-based design was inspired by sites such as Facebook and iGoogle.[19] The new homepage also had a simple searchbox taskbar with BBC clock from the 1970s as well as a box containing featured content of the website. The new BBC homepage left beta stage on Wednesday, 27 February 2008 to serve as the new BBC Homepage under the same URL as the previous version did.
On the 30 January 2010, the current homepage was available as a beta version,[20] and by May 2010 the homepage was replaced by the newer one. This new homepage expanded on the modules idea and the customisation theme. The website allowed certain themes that interested the viewer to be tracked, via a new module. It also included a new 'Media Zone' where featured content could be displayed. The header was again changed to include the headings: Home, News, Sport, Weather, iPlayer, TV, Radio and more. This new header was included across the entire website, however since the launch of the new BBC news website, the header may be changed once again. Despite the cosmetic appearance of the relaunch, the new website was actually relaunched using a completely different operating system. In October 2010, the new style of header, seen with the new BBC news website was launched across the whole website, starting off with some of the larger, not obvious, sites, such as Doctor Who, first before relaunching all of the sites, including the homepage with the new look. This new style of header included the headings as before, but with the search box redesigned and aligned right, as with the links which are significantly smaller. Other links, such as BBC id login and mobile versions of the website also appear on the header, just to the right of the smaller BBC logo.
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