Brussels.be blows first candle

This page has been automatically translated from French into English by a translation software. Automatic translations are not as accurate as translations made by professional human translators. Nevertheless these pages can help you understand information published by the City of Brussels.

   

This website is managed by 1 team of 3 persons, consisted of 1 coordinator and 2 writers. This Web Unit assures the fast online publishing of the municipal events, and the daily update of the information. GIAL also assures the maintenance and the IT development, as well as the hosting of the site.

One year in figures

Visits and visitors

For the past year (from 12 November 2008 till 11 November 2009), the website of the City of Brussels received 1.121.196 visits and 785.143 absolute unique visitors.

This is an average of 3.072 visits a day (or 2.150 visitors) while the former site had 1.950 visits (1.253 visitors) a day (from 1 May till 11 November 2008). In November 2009, the daily average is already 3.600 visits a day.

Peaks were reached at particular moments such as:

• The Car-Free Day: with 7.716 visits on Friday 8 May
• The National Holiday: 6.630 visits on Monday 20 July 2009
• The Car-Free Sunday: 14.137 visits on Sunday 20 September 2009

According to the statistics of the site, the visitors result from 190 countries. However, it is naturally the Belgians who visit the site most often. They are 74,3% of the visitors. Still, according to Google Analytics 32,45% of the visitors lives on the territory of the City of Brussels.

The foreign visitors come from France, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, the United States, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Canada.

55% of the visitors arrive on the site via search engines, whereas 26,3% arrive via a referring site. 18,7% arrive directly on the address of the site.

E-administration

In November 2008, 28 administrative operations were already online (e-Brussels). After one year, 947 forms were ordered via Irisbox (figures stopped on 30 October 2009): 795 were free and 155 required a payment (electronically or by transfer). This is an average of 80 forms ordered a month. The Brussels are not yet completely aware of the e-government services, but the evolution is positive.

Pages

In November 2009, the site contains 1.560 pages in 3 languages, against 686, only in French and in Dutch, one year ago. The illustrations inside the pages of the website and the picture galleries have multiplied.

Novelties of the past year

Translation in English

Since 2 June 2009, all the pages of the site appear in 3 languages (French, Dutch, English). For the English part, a translation software is used (from French towards English), completed by a human check by the Web Unit. The sound mode is also available in 3 languages.

Social networks

With the creation of a Twitter page in May 2009, the City of Brussels was the first municipality in Belgium to use microblogging as a communciation tool. Every new municipal event or the addition of new pages to the website are the object of a 'tweet' (micro-message) in 3 languages.

This summer, the function 'Save & share' was added to each of the pages of the site. This button on pages allows every Internet user to spread the information to one of 120 social networks.

This function of sharing information on a social networks was the first one in the Brussels Region.

Finally, since 31 August 2009, a page 'Site web Ville de Bruxelles - Website Stad Brussel' was created on the social network Facebook. It allows to spread the novelties on the website of the City. About 450 'fans' are registered at the Facebook group.

Videos

Since June 2009, the website is capable of integrating videos from YouTube, DailyMotion or Google Video. These videos allow to illustrate the atmosphere of an event or activities such as the Brussels Summer Festival, Roller Parades,... or they can present cultural institutions (Magritte Museum, Poche Theatre).

Contests

Since February 2009, the website of the City launches contests in partnership with cultural institutions or activities organized or supported by the City). 30 contests were already proposed. Prizes were mostly tickets, passes,... for cultural or other events.

A search tool of the catalogs of the City

The descriptive index cards of the building permit files (Town Planning) of the City of Brussels and the bibliographical index cards of the Library of the Archives of the City will be available for consultation on the website of the City, starting today.

First anniversary: novelties

A certified accessibility: AnySurfer

The new website of the City had been developed in 2008 by taking into account constraints and international directives about accessibility. It was however useful to make an audit and label by an outside body, AnySurfer in this case. On 5 November 2009, AnySurfer granted its label to the website of the City of Brussels.

The site was revised, taking into account the audit, so that the navigation is more coherent for visually handicapped and blind people. Texts and menus can always be enlarged. The links were made more explicit and now include the mention of the format (pdf, xls, doc). Pictures and form fields now have an alternate text that is legible for visually handicapped and blind people.

2 new webcams

The launch of the website in 2008 already included a webcam on the Grand-Place. The page dedicated to the webcam of the Grand-Place is one the most visited pages on the site: on average 700 daily visits. This webcam thus brings more visitors to the website of the City.

2 new webcams are presented on the website now. One of them was installed on the Continental Hotel and is directed to the Place De Brouckère (junction North-Midi). The other one was placed by a technician-climber at more than 102 metres height, on the mast of the Atomium.

The webcam of the Atomium allows a complete rotation (345° because of the mast) and offers the possibility of zooming 26 times. This webcam will thus allow the Internet users to discover the whole Heysel (Atomium, Brussels Expo, Bruparck) but also the City itself.