[ViridianFan]

Is it though? BBCi was dead by about 3 years when the iPlayer was named and launched. Indeed the Wikipedia suggests the 'i' means integrated as much as it means interactive.

I agree with your points about the old BBC Online experience being far better, there were pages and pages of content about a very wide range of things. The 'cult' pages on Red Dwarf were quite in-depth ISTR. However it did get a bit ridiculous, particularly the 'Where I live' pages which were often a blend of local news and current affairs with webcams showing nothing.

Iplayer launched 2007 with the bbci branding slowly being dropped during 2008. Granted it was a short time but it was the reason for the i. It was the player for bbci - bbc iplayer. The first link is a bbc news article about by the relaunch

news.bbc.co.uk 

The second link is introducing what bbci is all about. I can remember at the time this was being heralded as the future of TV. Interacting with shows hence the i.

web.archive.org 

At the time the big thing was being able to interact with shows and that was mainly via the red button. It was an impressive service and was such a shame it got reduce but apps could do what the red button could and more.

. There were also so many shows which made use of the red button. The game show which we with the lottery was usually interactive. You had test the nation allowing you to do the iq test. There was also that show were people were “put in power” and had to make decisions cobra style which you could play along with.

I couldn’t agree more about the website it was far too big and did too much. I was thinking more the visual appearance of it. I just find the current look very bland.