Quite some time back, Pete Clifton, the editor of the BBC news site, promised us an insight into the technology side of their offering. Finally, here it is.
It's written by a techie, so is predictably more factual than engaging. (I've worked with a lot of techies throughout my career, and you very rarely find those that can write compelling and engaging editorial. Some may argue that I struggle - as a relative non-techie - on the evidence of this site, but I'd beg to differ. For those who are interested in one of the few such gifted techies, click on the Joel on Software link either here or across to the right.)
I wasn't aware that as an international user, my BBC content was being sucked directly from New York; I always imagined the requests traversing the Atlantic and the content coming back faster than Concorde could ever manage. It's also interesting to read how the complex funding of the BBC as an organisation has a seemingly necessary impact on architectural decisions: different server farms to cater for different audiences.
Having given us a lowdown on the delivery side of the site (how we get the content), it would also be interesting to find out how the editorial side works: how news stories get promoted, how stories are written, how workflow works etc. That would fascinate me.
