iCAN

The BBC's long-awaited iCAN project is now in Beta, with the official launch due on 3 November. iCAN aims to help people find the people and the information that will help them take action on issues that concern them. Content is a little thin right now: this will be provided by people who use the website.

One of the first campaigns to get going is a corker: getting the Beeb to provide downloads (e.g. MP3) for material currently supplied in streaming form (organised by Kevin Marks). Another laudable campaign launched is against estate agents' signs.

iCAN can be considered on several levels, for example interaction design, social and political.

On the interaction level, it has to be said the site is still firmly in Beta, and the projected live date seems a little ambitious. There are some glitches and areas where interaction design could be improved, but according to Matt Jones there are already a couple of design iterations in the pipeline.

On the social level, both Matt Jones (who spent the last two years working on the project) and Tom Coates (who works at the BBC now) have offered some thoughts. Being a bear of little brain, I've still got my thinking cap on.

On the political level, while the UK government has for some time expressed concern about the level of participation in the democratic process (well, only really about low election turnouts if we're being honest), with a range of politicians and civil servants promoting increased citizen engagement and participation in speeches and reports, I have more than a suspicion that if this project truly takes off it will raise more than a few hackles in government over years to come.

For example, I can imagine that any campaigns designed to organise direct action activities against government policy would prove particularly troublesome. Were the next fuel protesters' action, the next miners' strike or the next poll tax riots to be organised via the BBC's website, what would the government's reaction be? While one of the spurs to the project was the BBC finding itself out of touch with grass-roots campaigns that went on to make the headlines, with iCAN it could well be putting itself at the eye of the hurricane.

iCAN is a bold move that seems in tune with the times. It's the kind of social software that government itself would be developing and using, were it to be truly interested in increasing participation in the political process.