BBC - SOLID PODs

The BBC has been experimenting with Solid PODs as part of its efforts to explore new ways of delivering personalized content to its users. Specifically, the BBC has been working on a project called “BBC Box”, which is a research project exploring the use of containers and Solid PODs to deliver personalized content to users.

The idea behind BBC Box is to create a containerized environment that can be deployed to any device or platform, and which can access a user’s Solid POD to deliver personalized content based on the user’s interests and preferences. The containerized environment includes a browser, which can be used to access the user’s Solid POD and display personalized content from the BBC.

One of the key benefits of using Solid PODs in this way is that the user retains full control over their data, and can choose to share as much or as little information with the BBC as they wish. This puts the user in control of their online identity and privacy, and ensures that their personal data is not being used without their consent.

The BBC has also been exploring the use of Solid PODs to enable users to create their own custom playlists of BBC content, which they can share with others or keep private. Users can create playlists using the BBC’s existing content, or they can create playlists that include content from other sources.

Overall, the BBC’s experiments with Solid PODs are part of a wider effort to explore new ways of delivering personalized content to users while respecting their privacy and giving them control over their own data. By using Solid PODs, the BBC is able to offer a more user-centric and transparent approach to content delivery, which could have significant implications for the future of online media.

Code that demonstrates how to use the solid-auth-client and solid-query-ldflex libraries to retrieve data from a Solid POD and display it in a custom playlist:

import { auth } from "solid-auth-client";
import { getThing, getUrl, setThing } from "@inrupt/solid-client";
import { vcard, foaf } from "rdf-namespaces";
import { createList } from "solid-query-ldflex";

// Define the Solid POD endpoint and login with a WebID
const solidEndpoint = "https://your-pod-url.com/";
const webId = "https://your-webid-url.com/";
await auth.login({ oidcIssuer: solidEndpoint, redirectUrl: webId });

// Retrieve the user's playlist from their Solid POD
const playlistUrl = `${solidEndpoint}public/playlists/myplaylist.ttl`;
const playlistThing = await getThing(playlistUrl);
const playlistItems = createList(playlistThing, foaf("member"));

// Add a new item to the playlist
const newItemUrl = "https://example.com/my-new-item";
const newItem = {
  [vcard.url]: newItemUrl,
  [vcard.fn]: "My new playlist item"
};
const newThing = setThing(playlistThing, newItem);
const newItems = [...playlistItems.values, newThing];
const updatedList = await newItems.saveAs(playlistUrl);

// Display the playlist in a web page
const playlistContainer = document.getElementById("playlist-container");
playlistItems.forEach(item => {
  const itemUrl = getUrl(item);
  const itemTitle = item[vcard.fn].value;
  const itemElement = document.createElement("a");
  itemElement.href = itemUrl;
  itemElement.textContent = itemTitle;
  playlistContainer.appendChild(itemElement);
});

This code logs in to the user’s Solid POD using the solid-auth-client library, retrieves the user’s playlist from a specified URL using the @inrupt/solid-client library, adds a new item to the playlist, and displays the updated playlist in a web page. The solid-query-ldflex library is used to create and manipulate the RDF list that represents the playlist.

You can adapt this code to retrieve and display different types of data from a Solid POD as needed. Note that this is just a basic example and does not include error handling or other necessary features for a production application.