The ever-thorough Drew McManus has once again shown that his Web site Adaptistration is the place to be for orchestra managers. This year’s Orchestra Web Site Review has an in-depth analysis of American and Canadian orchestras and their sites.
Particularly interesting, I thought, was today’s post on the comparison between American and Canadian sites. Overall, as it appears, Canadian sites do a better job. American orchestras reached higher highs and lower lows, but the Canadians did a better overall job with Web site fundamentals.
I found it interesting that, as Drew writes, “The only category where US orchestras not only dominated but increased at a faster rate of improvement over their Canadian counterparts is in Dynamic Content. By and large, US orchestras offered a higher quantity and quality of social networking offerings.”
But out of a maximum score of 15, on average the score was only 7.16, less than half. I suspect this has a lot to do with the quality of the offerings, rather than the quantity. Sure, many orchestras have started to use Twitter and Facebook, or have incorporated dynamic and social elements, but other than a few shining examples, it’s close to a butcher picking up a scalpel in the surgery room.
One new offering in this year’s Orchestra Web Site Review was reader participation. You can give your own zero-to-five star rating for each orchestra’s Web site and leave detailed comments in a discussion section. Drew tallied the scores on October 5, as you can read here, but the reader review is still open for participation.
The Orchestra Web Site Review is truly an invaluable source. The only one of its kind since 2004.