

Ask HN: How would you turn around/re-imagine a city website? - clamattack

I work a couple of days a month on a 'city site' for a fairly large  city in the UK, doing maintenance, clean ups etc. It's been going since 1998 so it's pretty established in internet terms but over the past couple of years has really lost its way and I'm struggling for ideas to revive it - I fear I might be too close to have some kind of revelation.<p>Stats-wise, the site has settled at around 2500 uniques per day and has remained at that level for maybe the past 2 years.  So it's not like no one ever visits, more that here is no reason for them to ever come back. It also has a very good domain (think CITY.com). Recently it has paid its way through crummy Yellow Pages-style adverts which are also drying up - and hurting the site in the process.<p>So, in short, assuming you had such a site at your disposal and had carte blanche to make changes - what would you do? How would you approach such a site?<p>I'm hoping to turn this around and make a success of it but right now struggle to think how.  Any ideas are welcome, no matter how outlandish!<p>p.s. In case it wasn't clear, it's currently a city guide to hotels, restaurants, shopping etc - but hopelessly outdated and ad-filled.
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invalidOrTaken
You want outlandish?

\--- aggregate all the google Places entries in your city

\--- ask your local chamber of commerce (if that exists in the UK?) if they
have a listing for every business in the city. Chop up and categorize

\--- Using the google maps api, create bundled experiences for visitors. It's
one thing to find the best restaurant. It's another to find the best
restaurant next to a good theater. It's an entirely different thing to go from
park to bar to historical mansion, tracing the life of Count Dead-for-a-long-
time. Ask tomasien on HN about his experiences with thecityswig.com

\--- write a business-owner-facing page (that is basically an API for humans)
allowing them to have special deals, pushed to mobile apps. Charge business
owners at least $x to avoid spam.

\--- record meetings of the city council and upload them.

\--- consider a discussion board. reddit style, discourse style? I don't know.

\--- take inspiration (of the positive or negative variety) from my hometown:
moraga.ca.us

~~~
clamattack
Thanks - this is the kind of thing I was looking for! I'll take a look at
those links too.

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lutusp
You managed to omit a link to the site. How shall we say what remedies to
apply to a site whose appearance we can only imagine?

But this advice anyway -- perform some A/B testing, see if proposed changes
actually work before making them permanent.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing>

> Any ideas are welcome, no matter how outlandish!

I offer this outlandish suggestion: provide a link to the site so people can
offer meaningful advice.

~~~
clamattack
I didn't include a link as the existing site is almost irrelevant and the vast
majority needs to be scrapped. I'm more interested in how people would
approach this from scratch with no preconceived notions. Like I said, I'm
looking to approach this as carte Blanche to build a 21st century city
guide/site/whatever and I'm having a brain freeze in that regard.

~~~
lutusp
> I didn't include a link as the existing site is almost irrelevant and the
> vast majority needs to be scrapped. I'm more interested in how people would
> approach this from scratch with no preconceived notions.

Well, first I would look at the page to see what the problems are.

Your move.

~~~
clamattack
Well I guess this is something of a stealth project for myself and I don't
really want to link it right now. I hoped for ideas on where someone would
start, totally from scratch to give me a fresh approach. If this approach is
unwise or inappropriate for here then I apologise and shall leave it at that.

~~~
lutusp
In that case, with the available information, you should strive to make the
page better than it is. Under the circumstances, no one will be able to offer
more apt advice (though some may try).

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gregcohn
A more useful way to approach this might be to ask for examples of city sites
that people think are good, and why.

It would probably also help to be clearer in your objectives -- city sites can
have vastly different goals, from helping citizens through processes like
getting permits and paying traffic tickets, to attracting visitors, to
promoting the members of its chamber of commerce.

