BBC launching HTML5 check-in app for its Radio 1 Big Weekend

Works with Future Platforms to help attendees tell friends which artists they're watching.

UK broadcaster the BBC is launching a social location app for its Radio 1 Big Weekend festival in Carlisle, but using HTML5 rather than native apps.

The BBC worked with developer Future Platforms and Facebook on the service, which will run mainly on iPhone and Android devices, allowing people to check in to specific stages and artists during the festival via the Facebook Places API.

"We hope that a lot of folks in the audience at Radio 1's Big Weekend will try the service, quickly and easily showing their loyalty to their favourite artists to their Facebook friends, sharing links to the wealth of artist and event info on the corresponding desktop and mobile websites and generally spreading the love," blogs James Simcock, executive producer, mobile, Audio & Music Interactive at the Beeb.

Meanwhile, Future Platforms' client services director Sergio Falletti adds some reasoning behind going mobile web rather than native.

"We built the Check In product as an HTML5 web app because it gave us the best compromise between the flexibility and client-side functionality. Given the project's timescales and experimental nature, iterating native apps for iPhone and Android would have been too inflexible and time consuming - HTML5 allowed us to target both platforms with the same code-base."