I-player

Fantastic news! The BBC has just reinvented the wheel!

I was expecting more from iplayer. First of all it would have been nice to have a platform independent player for those of us who have adopted open standards or non-Microsoft media players, or have Macs, or have different versions of Windows from the ones adopted by the Beeb...or Vista, either. So that's a PITA.

Secondly, where's the content? Basically this lets me watch some of last week's television. No archives, no clips. Limited searchability. I get a lot more out of Youtube. No user interactivity, no uploads, no web 2.0 functionality.

This really looks to me like just another media player, only it accesses a limited pool of content and allows the BBC to control its digital rights. In other words, it's been produced to suit a producer agenda - not a consumer agenda.

Imagine if I have to download separate software for each station I want to watch on my PC. So I'll have iplayer, ITVplayer, Skyplayer, Stripping Housewives Player, and FourPlay. :-)

I really think this is not going to catch on... but it may take quite a while to die.

(And yes, I know C4 called their player 4oD.... but the joke was too good to resist)