FN-FORUM: Your thought on adding social bookmarking to government-funded website

date posted 23rd March 2008 12:10

Good Afternoon,

A client of mine, whose website is a government-funded information
type website, which has recently been tasked with increasing sign-ups
by 5% to their site, is considering linking in with social networking
sites and other tools such as facebook, digg, furl, stumbleupon, etc..
I am sure you guys will be wanting far more information in order to
provide me with a more informed response, but due to the sensitive
nature this project this is all the background I am able to provide
you with.

Now my belief is that because of the nature of their site, they should
be making news and creating the features that make the likes of
facebook and others want or need to link to them, not the other way
around...as once you haven sent your visitors away, they will go there
direct and you have lost your traffic and all hope of signup. No?
The key I think is in developing the features on their site rather
than looking to other sites for them to compensate.

That said, some of these social bookmarking tools are really good, and
I am wondering what your thoughts are? Things like RSS newsfeed
readers are definitely in, for example. Do you know of serious
government-funded websites which use these tools that I can take as an
example? Which would be those you recommend we tie into?

Sorry for the vagueness, I assure you any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Best,
Duncan

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Duncan Glendinning
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