The BBC has been testing a new service called SoundIndex, which lists the top 1,000 artists based on discussions crawled from Bebo, Last.fm, Google Groups, iTunes, MySpace and YouTube. The top five bands according to SoundIndex right now are Coldplay, Rihanna, The Ting Tings, Duffy and Mariah Carey , but the index is refreshed every six hours.

This is somewhat similar to Songkick’s “Battle Of The Bands,” which we covered in March. Songkick uses different data – MySpace, Amazon and blogs – to determine rankings, and the results are completely different.

SoundIndex also lets users sort by popular tracks, search by artist, or create customized charts based on music preferences or filters by age range, sex or location. Results can also be limited to just one data source (such as Last.fm).

SoundIndex was created in partnership with IBM (IBM’s Semantic Super Computing is used to crawl and analyze sites), and the UK’s NovaRising produces the site. The project is coming out of BBC Switch, BBC’s new teen service delivering content to 12 to 17-year-olds across multiple platforms, TV, Radio 1 and online.

Thanks to Tyler McNally for the tip.

If you are looking for some stock videos to add to your blog or Website, Mochila just added about 800 clips from the BBC Motion Gallery, the licensing arm of the BBC. It doesn’t include news clips unfortunately, but there are plenty of science and culture videos. If you need a nicely produced video of striped fish or how to make a Singapore Sling, you can find it on Mochila and embed it on your blog. You will have to sign up first and agree to Mochila’s licensing terms.

Mochila offers a large syndication library from 350 different content partners, including news articles, photos, and videos. You can find content from Reuters, the AP, Hearst and Getty Images and put it in a post, or mix and match items to create your own customized channel that appears in a constantly changing widget. Mochila serves ads in the widget and splits the proceeds 40 percent to the content owner, 30 percent to the Website or blog that publishes it, and keeps 30 percent for itself.

We are seeing more and more of these types of syndication platforms for spreading traditional media content out to the Web. ClipSyndicate, for instance, does something similar for news video clips from ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates, as well as Bloomberg and AP video. Mochila cuts the licensing deals with the big media companies on behalf of bloggers and Websites, and gives them legal access to the content, with a little rev-share of the advertising proceeds thrown in. Says CEO Keith McAllister:

The core technology is around licensing. We allow content owners to set custom content licensing around their content down to the asset level.

So the BBC can set parameters around what types of sites can show its videos, and even block specific sites it does not want to be associated with. And blogger scan create their own custom content channels. It is a good model. All it needs is better content.

European ISPs are up in arms over the BBC’s new online TV player, iPlayer. Concerns from service providers such as Tiscali and companies like Carphone Warehouse center around, of all things, a fear of the BBC’s player being too successful and pounding their networks during peak hours.

Apparently the internet isn’t ready for IPTV. As the Financial Times reports Mary Turner, CEO of Tiscali UK says, “The internet was not set up with a view to distributing video. We have been improving our capacity, but the bandwidth we have is not infinite”. Add to this concerns over Joost’s ability to compete head to head on quality with other online video providers and it paints a poor picture for TV getting online.

However, this seems a thinly veiled return to the net neutrality debate that periodically pops up when ISPs start thinking of ways to increase revenue without increasing network capacity. As GigaOm cites, it could cost UK ISPs up to $2 billion to upgrade their capacity to match increasing demand.

We’re due for an upgrade in the U.S. The U.S.’s top broadband speeds actually lag behind other OECD countries. Japan’s surfers can connect to the internet on a 100 Mbps Ferrari compared to the U.S topping out at a 40 Mbps 1970’s hatchback. They also pay much less, $0.22/Mbps to our $3.10/Mbps. And to think companies brag about a $260/month 50 Mbps connection in Sacramento.

New IPTV startups are only a slice of internet traffic. According to a report by CacheLogic, more than 60 percent of Internet traffic is used by peer-to-peer swaps, and about 60 percent of those swaps involve video content. IPTV adds to demand, but has been singled out most likely because there are a few large content providers to point the finger at.

I sometimes say regretful things when speaking off the cuff at conferences. Last month at The Future of Web Apps conference in London I (jokingly) called for the dissolution of the BBC because some of their online ventures are, in my opinion, stifling private sector startup initiatives in the UK and Europe. As a publicly funded entity with near limitless financial resources, I think the BBC needs to be careful about what businesses they dip their toes into. I mentioned a new BBC virtual world product as an example.

Did I mean it literally? No. The BBC sends us far too much traffic for me to want it to dissolve (and I think it’s a brilliant, well run company as well). But the whole thing was caught on video and, as you can imagine, I was roundly (and I believe properly) criticized (although see this comment). At best this is none of my business, although I lived in the UK for many years and well remember the dreaded BBC television tax.

But it appears that some European startups do consider this their business, and have complained to the European Commission about the BBC’s Jam project, “an online learning resource for children, designed to be used at home to support key areas of the school curriculum across the UK.” The service went live a year ago, and the BBC said they plan on investing £150m on the project over five years. Half of that has already been spent, 190 people work on the project and 170,000 users have registered for the service.

The BBC says they will suspend the service based on these complaints. “Commercial people in the education sector are claiming the BBC is damaging their business; it is seen as a state subsidy,” said BBC Media Correspondent Torin Douglas.

I don’t know the nature of the complaints, and I don’t have an opinion on this other than to say that it’s clear that the BBC is struggling with it’s boundaries and what types of services it can offer, particularly online. Those of you in the UK – please let me know what you think about all of this.

As much as I love the BBC, I can’t help but wonder if they would have written about this new virtual world if it wasn’t their own property.

Details are very thin. In fact, as Ben Metcalfe, a former BBC’er, points out, we don’t know if this is a simple Flash game or a real competitor to Second Life.

It is slated to go live this summer, and will be called “CBBC World” because it is part of CBBC, the BBC channel for 7-12 year olds. Users will be able to “create almost every aspect of their avatar” and money/finances will not be a part of the world.

Hopefully more details will emerge soon.

Zudeo, the new “100% legal” content sharing site launched by popular BitTorrent company Azureus two weeks ago, just nailed a distribution deal with the BBC. That just took them from a theoretically cool product to a player in the online video space.

Under the agreement, BBC will license a number of television shows to U.S. users, including Red Dwarf, Strange and Invasion Earth, Little Britain, Doctor Who, Fawlty Towers, Coupling, Keeping Up Appearances, League of Gentlemen and Ideal.

It is a tragedy that they didn’t include the only BBC show worth watching, The Office. Of course, that show is readily available on Azureus’ BitTorent client.

The benefits of Zudeo are pretty clear to publishers, who can leverage P2P networks to substantially decrease bandwidth costs and speed downloads for users.

This spells trouble for Pando and Red Swoosh, which offer competing products to publishers. Zudeo probably isn’t focused on those companies, though. There is a multi-party war brewing for IPTV eyeballs between iTunes, Venice Project, Zudeo and YouTube. Watch this space.