project revealed: a new way to engage with users and their content

For a few months now I’ve been dropping hints, posting supportive arguments and gathering tips from those running similar projects and today I can tell you what it’s all about because we’ve finally launched the BBC Manchester Blog.

In a nutshell, those running or supporting the project hope that the blog will allow us to learn how the BBC can engage with people creating and publishing local content on third party (non-BBC) websites and services [eg. flickr, various blogging platforms, youtube, etc].

Yes, it’s that thing I keep going on and on about: a media organisation going oustide it’s doors to proactively embrace members of the audience, and the stuff they create and publish online without building the infrastructure, claiming ownership over the content, or taking on the various legal, editorial and technical risks usually associated with "online community" and "citizen journalism". You can find out more about the purpose and background of the project in our first post.

But I’m not posting this because I want to brag about a project that isn’t even really off the ground yet, but because we need your help:

We’re looking for Manchester focused content and the people who create it. Do you know of any interesting local blogs, great flickr streams, online videos, etc that might fit the bill? If you know of anything you think we might want to have a look at, we’d appreciate it if you could stop by the blog and drop us a URL. And if you know someone who might want to create great local web content, but needs a bit of help doing so, have them send us an email telling us what they want to do. Not here. Here.