BBC Backstage closes to make way for cross-industry developer network

Developer project that paved the way for transparency and shared data across the public sector has been wound up

The BBC has closed its BBC Backstage developer project after five years to make way for a cross-industry developer network, according to a report in the Guardian.

The ethos of BBC Backstage - to radically open up the organisation by publishing information and data feeds and creating a developer community - has more recently been adopted by other public bodies in the form of the government's transparency agenda.

The initiative was created around the Backstage web site, and saw developers create a range of APIs for BBC services and content. The project then led to more experimental projects and organised hack events, where external developers and designers would create new tools to make use of the data differently.

During those five years the project visited 26 cities, accumulated 567 blog posts with 585 comments, and created 140 online videos.

According to a BBC spokesperson, the combined repository for data from media organisations and tech companies was still in the very early stages, and so as yet no details regarding who is involved have been released.