BBC launches a Kenyan-designed online news tool

BBC has announced that it is piloting and testing BBC Drop, a Kenyan-designed online tool that allows users to get tailored BBC news content for the Smartphone and social media generation.

This responsive website is the result of a unique collaboration between a Kenyan start-up called Ongair and the BBC. BBC Drop is specially created to work well on Smartphones and was designed in Nairobi last year.

The idea was born out of a development studio (hackathon) held by the BBC World Service and BBC digital innovations team, Connected Studio. Teams of African tech experts were invited to think of new ways to reach young Africans through social and digital media.

Dmitry Shishkin, Digital Development Editor for BBC World Service, adds: “This latest innovation highlights the BBC’s strong commitment to serving young digital audiences in Africa – both editorially and technically. Digital revolution in Africa offers media companies great opportunities to grow the reach of their journalism and I am very happy that an African tech start-up is playing a key role in it”.

BBC Drop asks the user for a few favourite topics, or social media preferences, and then continues to learn what they like and dislike from what they swipe on screen. There is also the option of an even more personal news feed which incorporates the user’s own social feeds. The end result is users getting to see content specifically tailored to them, and the stuff they are not interested in being filtered out.

The BBC Drop pilot is available on BBC Taster and can be tried out and rated for the next three months. It works well on all screens and devices, but has been designed with Android users in mind given the overwhelming popularity of the platform with our audiences across the world and in Africa in particular.

The site collects news content from across the BBC. The aggregation and tagging is made possible using BBC Juicer, a tool created by BBC News Labs, which takes in news sources from across the globe and automatically tags specific topics.