FN-FORUM: Format/platform options for large government funded website

date posted 2nd March 2008 21:47

Good Evening all,

Hoping to start a bit of conversation here about the building of a
fairly large website which will be developed and maintained primarily
through government funding.
I can't get into details too much, so apologies about this, but hoping
the general concepts can be discussed and people would be willing to
share their thoughts.
Until now the website has been used as a very unattractive shop window
mainly to attract corporate sponsorship and fulfill PR objectives, but
had little or no information/features/content for the man on the
street.
The aim is to redevelop the web site in order to help improve sign ups
by up to 10%. The website is also incredibly outdated and could do
with being brought up to date with the latest technologies.

An interesting post here about Social Media like Facebook versus
Microsites for marketing campaigns and brand awareness:
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-content/social-media-vs-the-marketing-campaign-microsite-001979.php

What are your thoughts? My feeling is that microsites are not dead,
and would in fact suit a government funded organisation who are more
likely to have regular pockets of funding in line with specific
campaigns rather than a bulk of funding (although they probably have
that too!). I also think that microsites can work hand in hand with
trendier social networking/media applications such as
Facebook/MySpace, etc...

Finally, I am a php/MySql man, and have little or no knowledge of
microsites, so for those of you who have been involved in projects
like this in the past, please get in touch with some examples of your
work, I may very well look you up.

A fairly open-ended post I know, but get involved if interested.

Cheers,
Duncan