I think this is awful! At what other time has the BBC put other sites logos anywhere on their site aside from when they feature in the story? Is this a groundbreaker? They mention the New York Times and Washington Post having the same system – er, well they are commercial sites carrying paid for advertisements. The joy of the BBC is the lack of this, and I believe thats what we are paying for through the license fee.

Stop polluting our site and get them off! – Richard Turnbull

I couldnt agree more.

And I must disagree about Gerry McGovern: I think the correct description there is “self-described content guru.”

CJ: yes, the icon is starting to pop up all over the place and might go some way to offsetting Terrence’s (valid) concerns.

Having said all that, it’s Web 2.0 people: the page is meant to be littered with widgets, badges, javascript etc…

I don’t know much about the Share Icon Project (the site is down), but the one-icon-to-rule-them-all approach might assuage complaints around the politics of representation and page clutter?

Sure, not everyone agrees with Jakob, especially designers, but he is not alone in his view. Relevant theory governing simplicity vs multiple choice include hicks law and occams razor. Then of course there are content gurus like Gerry McGovern who essentially says the same thing from a content producers perspective.

It would be good to see a general increase in web savvy for the average person, but I would far sooner go for usable content over teaching people how to use their software and the internet in general.

In reverse order: the conclusion, the environment we work in refers to the fact that taxpayer funded initiatives, whether online or not, inevitably polarise opinion: it is just not possible to satisfy everyone.

Does the delivery make the sentiment less valid? I think not. Surely part of the Beeb’s remit (as with most public sector entities) is to offer as many avenues for engagement for its (diverse) stakeholders as is practicable? Many of the commenters appreciate the addition of the buttons.

From a usability perspective, I don’t see it as a problem. It is (in the case of this implementation) secondary to the content and is appropriately placed within the flow of the page. Does it add to the user experience? Jakob might disagree, but he is hardly beyond reproach…

I do agree that, for most early adopters, the links are redundant. For most ordinary readers though, seeing these links often enough may eventually prompt them to actually open a del.icio.us account: and that has to be a good thing.

From a social networking perspective, it shows web 2.0 is messy, people are emotional, and they dont care about engaging with you by your rules. The question here is: does the delivery make the sentiment any less valid because it differs from what you are used to?

I’m not sure what you mean in the first point of your conclusion: ‘it is the environment we work in’ – I am not aware of the public sector actually using social media to engage with the public in a meaningful way. On the whole, most egovt site’s are barely beyond the egovt version of a brochure site.