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Mar 29
Web Tweak: San Jose (CA) CVB
Now we're getting somewhere!  The website for the San Jose (California) Convention and Visitors Bureau openly welcomes visitors and conventions.  This is the first site I've found to do so.  Still, I wish that the welcome were the head title, and not "Access San Jose".  On the whole, it is well designed to do the work of a CVB site.  The optical flow leads the viewer to the buttons and links that serve a potential client.

As a CVB site, it loses its focus a bit when it aims its first pass-through link to "Visitors and Residents".  But then, it has bitten off something bigger than a CVB site should; it's "Access San Jose", including info that residents can use to better enjoy their community.  That's admirable, and if the community doesn't have another entity to praise itself and sell itself to the local citizenry, I guess I can understand the one-stop uber -site.  Otherwise, they ought to let the city speak to its residents on one site, and the tourism people speak to potential visitors on another site, while the CVB sells hotel rooms and convention services on yet another (true and dedicated) CVB site.

I'll harp on this all across the continent.

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4 Comments/Trackbacks




Matt, would you agree that there are far more sites that allow experts to speak to the plebs, than allow the people to speak to those who are there to serve them. Maybe they are combined -- maybe separated -- but they seem to go one-way rather than two. If you agree -- how can that change so that diminished voices with great ideas might be heard more at the heart of society and heeded more in our heirarchies today? Thoughts?

MATT"S REPLY: That's a pretty heavy, philosophical rumination to be appended to a small critique of a CVB website. But the fact that it's here is the answer to your question. Diminished voice, great idea, planted in a forum with a huge potential audience. Just keep writing and publishing. And don't despair.

Matt, thanks for this site which reminds me how much is out there that I know little about!

I was thrilled to read the first comment, though, would you agree that there are far more sites that allow experts to speak to the plebs, than allow the people to speak to those who are there to serve them.

The trend toward one way flow out there, which seems prevalant and growing, would seem to work against so much that you emphasize as vital.

Perhaps you would consider doing a blog on this critical issue to help another pleb like me to understand where this trend is taking our nation, and how me address the problem and even turn the dangerous tides together.

Seems like a feature ever web owner might have thoughts on.... I'd love to hear more....

The title probably was created for search engines and the usage of keywords. Welcome ... doesnt reflect much.

Diminished voice, great idea, planted in a forum with a huge potential audience. Just keep writing and publishing. And don't despair.

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