Big media as reverse hubs

Everytime media people are discussing the web in public, one of the things they discuss is whether to continue their bet on being destination sites or whether to let the content flow to the sites, where users hang out.

But what if you could do it the other way around? What if you could pull in what people do and say and become sort of a reverse hub for content and conversation? BBC is showing that you can indeed do that - and the concept is absolutely brilliant.

ReadWriteWeb reports on BBC Radio 1 who have created the Sound Index. It’s a service that crawls social networking sites as well as iTunes, Google, YouTube et all to get a sense of what people are listening to, downloading, watching and debating in the music space. Based on that data, BBC creates custom charts, which you as a user can filter to your liking.

As I mentioned the idea is absolutely brilliant. This is a way of pulling in all the data that exists on the web and present it in a new context and in a mix with more traditional media content as fx the BBC Radio 1. Its a way of adding value and making big media relevant to people once again - an opportunity I would think that most media execs are dying to get.

It also however suggests something else. Just maybe it shouldn’t always be about the media trying to set the public agenda. Maybe it should be more about media listening to the agenda on the street, creating overviews, opportunities and providing perspective on it. That to me sounds like an excellent way of adding value to the flurry of content out there.