Vatican - One of the First Websites... Still Hasn't Changed?
After reading an article (from Six Revisions) on the History of the Internet, I realized just how cutting-edge our Church has been, historically, when it comes to using the web for communications. The Vatican website (www.vatican.va) was one of the first globally-relevant and vast websites in the world!
The site was built in 1995 as a repository of Church documents, and has since been greatly expanded. However, in this time, pages are getting lost, information is, at best, hard to find, and the generic design has barely changed.
Vatican.va - then (1998) and now. Not much has changed, at least on the surface.
What will it take to bring the Vatican back to the fore of the Internet? Pope Benedict, and Pope John Paul II before him, have repeatedly called for the responsible and widespread use of new communications technology in evangelization and preservation of the Gospel... let's get back on top of the game!
Steps Towards a Better Website
What can the Vatican do to get back in the game? Well, here are a few suggestions:
- Get on a CMS. And make the site truly multi-lingual. Drupal would be a good choice, with it's i18n module. Content should be published in multiple languages quickly and properly-translated.
- Auto-detect the user's region and give him the front page in their own language, with the option of changing languages.
- Put more evangelical information on the front page. A picture of Saint Peter's square doesn't suffice. Have something that will bring a newcomer further into the site (maybe a tie-in to the Vatican Museums?).
- Highlight Papal encyclicals and Church documents; perhaps start a blog for topics covered in the plethora of online documents!
- Get rid of the ugly, 90s-era repeating background image. But keep an elegant, relatively-timeless style.
These are just a few of my suggestions – many more can be had. What do you think?
Comments
Couldn't agree more...
FWIW...I really like what they did with their YouTube page. www.youtube.com/vatican
Good color selection and use of transparency and background image.
This story about meeting with reps from social media outlets MAY bear some fruit: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4888048,00.html
I like this initiative - http://pope2you.net/ , but it sounds like they contracted a local guy for a one-off.
I hope the Communications office develops a long-term strategy, that involves hiring technical staff.
The Pope2You thing looked cool for about a week, but there was no follow-through, so it seems to have flopped right onto it's head. Hopefully the Vatican can make a better long term strategy in this regard ;-)
The YouTube channel is a pretty good success, I think, but it should be one of many different initiatives to get the Catholic use of the web into the 21st century :)
Advancing the faith.
LOL, you mean the parchment background on everything isn't in?!! Yes, I guess we shouldn't be too hard on dioceses when the Vatican isn't willing to invest in an up to date web presence. It's not as important as the Real Presence, but come on, it's got to be up there, right! :)
Technology is moving at a fast rate. To take advantage means staffing (Open Source:) people on a permanent basis, not one offs like @catholicservant mentioned.
I'm sure a lot of it has to do with risk. A design or structure that takes any more risks is probably uncharted territory in Vatican Land.
Quite true. But I think it would be nice if the vision could be a little more forward-thinking...
Advancing the faith.
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