Comments on: Social Networking and Heritage http://www.pastthinking.com/blog/2008/02/11/social-networking-and-heritage/ Where Past Meets Future Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:28:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Andy Burnham http://www.pastthinking.com/blog/2008/02/11/social-networking-and-heritage/#comment-47617 Andy Burnham Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:19:52 +0000 http://www.pastthinking.com/blog/2008/02/11/social-networking-and-heritage/#comment-47617 For a new social networking site to take off you first need to have compelling content, which in turn leads to enough momentum of visitors to sustain social networking. Without this social networking will not take off. I don't see this compelling content from the 'official' heritage sites. Get more of your collections available properly online, so you can view photographs rather than just indexes that photos exist. The other heritage related social networking hubs out there are the Time Team forum (obvious what the compelling content is there) and the BBC history fora (same again) The other reason the sites you mention appear at the top of the Google listings is because they link to each other, and are linked to by other sites. 'Official' heritage sites are in my experience very sniffy about linking to the popular web resources such as the Megalithic Portal. www.megalithic.co.uk Another factor is that the database generated web pages they create for possible indexing by Google are also not at all Google friendly. Incoming and outgoing Links = popularity in Google... You also need to engage your visitors to make them active contributors, something that is not easy to do. Despite all the user generated content, according to my stats the vast majority of visitors are casual and don't contribute. For a new social networking site to take off you first need to have compelling content, which in turn leads to enough momentum of visitors to sustain social networking. Without this social networking will not take off.

I don’t see this compelling content from the ‘official’ heritage sites. Get more of your collections available properly online, so you can view photographs rather than just indexes that photos exist.

The other heritage related social networking hubs out there are the Time Team forum (obvious what the compelling content is there) and the BBC history fora (same again)

The other reason the sites you mention appear at the top of the Google listings is because they link to each other, and are linked to by other sites.

‘Official’ heritage sites are in my experience very sniffy about linking to the popular web resources such as the Megalithic Portal. http://www.megalithic.co.uk

Another factor is that the database generated web pages they create for possible indexing by Google are also not at all Google friendly.
Incoming and outgoing Links = popularity in Google…

You also need to engage your visitors to make them active contributors, something that is not easy to do. Despite all the user generated content, according to my stats the vast majority of visitors are casual and don’t contribute.

]]> By: Vidi « Archaeoastronomy http://www.pastthinking.com/blog/2008/02/11/social-networking-and-heritage/#comment-47604 Vidi « Archaeoastronomy Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:02:25 +0000 http://www.pastthinking.com/blog/2008/02/11/social-networking-and-heritage/#comment-47604 [...] Social Networking and Heritage at Past Thinking Tom Goskar on how the professionals are being beaten by the enthusiasts when it comes to heritage and social networking. [...] [...] Social Networking and Heritage at Past Thinking Tom Goskar on how the professionals are being beaten by the enthusiasts when it comes to heritage and social networking. [...]

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