One of the opportunities created by moving your program’s content onto a robust Web 2.0 platform is the ability to add social networking (peer-to-peer conversations) and social media (comments, ratings, and tagging of content) capabilities to your user community’s activities. You also gain new lines of communication with your service users and community members.
Developing on one of the leading Web 2.0 CMS platforms will also accelerate the means to integrate other important tools (such as Google language translation capabilities) into the your program. Content curation capabilities can also be assigned to the appropriate employees and volunteers, so that content updating is a shared responsibility and requires limited technical support.
Your multi-year technology budget will need to be front-loaded to trade some monies for time in order to get this online within months. However, the cost on maintaining this system will be significantly lower over the period of the contract.
Photo Credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
Virtual Democracy 