Microsites and their effect

[charlotteshj]

When doing museum websites we often tend to think of it as a platform for marketing (e.g. for new exhibitions and temporary exhibitions). We often make a microsite, with its own domain or subdomain and specific content, unique to the topic in question.

But I have for some time had doubts. Does it really make sense - webwise? It takes a couple of months for the site to gain value, get really visible in Google - and by that time the exhibiton is closing down and the site eventually dies. So, most of the traffic for such a site comes from the museums own webpage, and maybe by a couple of other referring sites. (often cultural geritage sites, touristsites etc.)

With a substantial marketing budget for advertising the site, things may look different. But how much does a traditional 1.0 webexperience with lots of nice pictures and exquisite flash elements etc. "influence" the user? Does it turn webguests into museumvisitors? And to what extend? Does anyone know of surveys etc. which adresses this topic?

[Amelia]

The IMLS National Study on the Use of Libraries, Museums and the Internet has quite a bit of data on the correlation between online and in-person visits to museums.

[Paul Reynolds]

Great topic.
I would like to see all micro sites replaced with web projects that can travel.

By this I mean built the project into the main part of the web site - but make sure that the core of it - or a key aspect of the project is made avaiable as a web widget which an online visitor can take away and put on their web site - blog - etc .

Widgets are becoming more and more common on social networking sites - blogs, and student learning areas, etc.

The thinking that underpins this is already in evidence. For example, we are seeing a lot of energy from people/museums making their video plays available on video sharing sites. Lots of these, Vimeo, You Tube etc offer the embed option. Museums use these. So we can see this principle of sharing in action.

The question then for me - is how can we deconstruct current museum thinking on micro sites and start thinking around how the project it contains can be embedded into all the nooks and crannies of the emerging social/semantic web.


paul

[charlotteshj]

Hi Paul,

This is exactly the direction in which I am thinking!

It takes quite a long time for a microsite to gain visibilty on the web, and when Google has noticed it, the exhibition is about to close and the site dies. So, what I am thinking is, that it is of course important to have information about an exhibition on the website, but that the 2.0 way of promoting it is apps, widgets etc.

But I would so like to see/hear about results from museums who have actually done it, since my own experiences are few. We (still) only have a few things in the museum where I work.

And I am very interested in knowing more about surveys etc. which adresses the context between look-and-feel of museum websites and museum visits. Does a flashy experience-orientated website make people want to visit the museum more? Or doesn´t the look-and-feel convince anybody?

kind regards
Charlotte

@Amelia: Thanks for the link! This is interesting and provides a good point in the old discussion about wheter or not people will come to the museum if they can see "everything" on the web. The conclusion reminds me of a Danish art museum which sometime ago used the slogan "Come and see the pictures you know - but haven´t seen yet" (poor translation, it sounds much more elegant in Danish ;-)