OPEN

* * UPDATED * *

As hinted at in a speech Open posted about in March (see BBC 2.0), the BBC yesterday talked more about its plans for a re-launch of its website, with the ambition of becoming a "public service version of MySpace".

The concept for the new site will be based around "share", "find" and "play" – helpfully translating Web 2.0 buzzwords like collaboration, co-creation and search into everyday language.

The BBC bringing Web 2.0 to the mass market in the UK is how we should read this – and the implications are  very big indeed. I think that this will represent a massive leap forward, especially in the UK, where the BBC is significant part of most people’s media consumption across radio, TV and Web.

Part of the plan will be to make the whole of the BBC catalogue of content search-able online – astounding!

MediaGuardian reports:

The BBC is also running a competition to revamp the bbc.co.uk 2.0 website, asking the public to redesign the homepage to "exploit the functionality and usability of services such as Flickr, YouTube, Technorati and Wikipedia".

Read more in Mark Sweeney’s MediaGuardian article here.

UPDATE: For a lot more detail, take a look at the BBC press office information on the announcement here.