Vancouver.ca website = 3 million dollars

[Gridlock]

Here's the part that I don't get...Vancouver is ONE city.

Calgary spent 3 million. Richmond was good for 1.5. There is like 20 other cities with websites.

Can't everyone just use the same damn thing? They all have the same departments and all you need to do is change out some phone numbers, put a different mayor in, a picture of a different park and call it a day.

But no. We all hire a group of people that start with a blank screen and its 100's of millions just for cities in Canada alone.

[kristianhay]

It's about building brand - regardless of whether most people recognize it, every city is a brand in itself. The website plays a large part in that identity, which is why they're willing to pay for it.

[Gumby]

[sh0n]

Waste of tax payer's money.

$1 to 2 Million I understand. $3m just seems like cost over-run and certain parties loading up their pockets.

FIN

[Spoon]

^
Without even knowing what they actually did for the back end, how the fuck can you even judge whether it was worth it or not.

[winson604]

Originally Posted by Gridlock

Here's the part that I don't get...Vancouver is ONE city.

Calgary spent 3 million. Richmond was good for 1.5. There is like 20 other cities with websites.

Can't everyone just use the same damn thing? They all have the same departments and all you need to do is change out some phone numbers, put a different mayor in, a picture of a different park and call it a day.

But no. We all hire a group of people that start with a blank screen and its 100's of millions just for cities in Canada alone.

Actually no, every City does not have the same departments and even then the policies/bylaws are different from City to City. Like somebody had mentioned already, this isn't your moms bakery website. You have no idea how much content is on a Cities website, there's so much you can't even begin to imagine. So once again no, it's impossible to do a cookie cutter method and just change phone numbers and people's faces.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by Gumby

why the fail skinny? i thought it was kind of funny.

[SkinnyPupp]

ma ybe I'm blind from the martinis but I cant read it

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by dinosaur

I already said I do not know a lot about website development, but was and still am a frequent user of the website. As a layperson, I see no difference...I am assuming that other frequent users are the same.

As I said, its just my opinion. I am not sure how I am being trolled by the media. I read the headline "City spends 3 million on new website". Seemed pretty factual to me. I am able to form my own opinions....I didn't just fall off the turnip truck.

Sees headline with no context.
Thinks City website is nothing more than water schedule and recycling info.
Admits no knowledge of web development.
Knee-jerk reaction.

Trolled.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp

ma ybe I'm blind from the martinis but I cant read it

must be the coffee helping me read it...either way i'd rather be where you're at with the martinis

[Energy]

I thought it was funny too lol

[Noir]

Originally Posted by sh0n

Waste of tax payer's money.

$1 to 2 Million I understand. $3m just seems like cost over-run and certain parties loading up their pockets.

FIN

What are you basing the scaling of costs with? Do you have any comparative data? Comparative sites to compare costs with? Or how about comparative quotes from competing development companies?


Or are you just a retard who conveniently picked the #3 as barometer of whether something costs exorbitant or not?

[dinosaur]

Dude, you work for Yellow Pencil, Open Text, CoV or something?

You seem awfully offended that people are questioning government spending...

[Noir]

Originally Posted by dinosaur

Dude, you work for Yellow Pencil, Open Text, CoV or something?

You seem awfully offended that people are questioning government spending...

I'm in the web industry and yeah I'm offended.

I'm offended everytime people think that Web Development/Web Design is a $9.00 per hour job. (and trust me, I've seen this in Craigslist from time to time )

I'm offended at people who trivialize other people's profession.


What if I were to tell you that you should be paid $9.00 an hour. Because I think running a fucking apartment building requires no post-secondary education at all. That you can practically pick any guy off the street, tell him what to do and he can do your job.

Yah, you'd tell me I don't know the half of it.



And for a person who already openly admitted ignorance to the topic and field, you're still hella opinionated about it.





Want a glimpse of what its like to be in the Web Industry? Imagine this. What if I asked to you to learn 5 - 10 different languages. Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Russian, etc. Yah, that's what's its like to be a web dev. It's not just learning how to speak a couple of coding/programming languages likeHTML, CSS. The industry standard nowadays are a heck of a lot more: HTML5, CSS3, Java, Javascript, JQuery, Actionscript 2, Actionscript 3, PHP, JSP, ASP, C, C++, Perl, Python, etc etc etc. And like someone already said, this lists keeps growing as technologies evolve.

That's just a small part of why we're expensive.

[Glove]

the more they spend, the more job security I have,

I say spend it all

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by dinosaur

Dude, you work for Yellow Pencil, Open Text, CoV or something?

You seem awfully offended that people are questioning government spending...

People don't look at your apartment building and say "You spent how much on new plumbing??! That's way too much. You should have only spent half that".

"Yeah but here's what the money went to, and here are the benefits, and of course there were some inevitable bumps along the way, etc"

"Don't care. That's too much. Building still looks the same. Oh BTW I have no idea about how much plumbing actually costs or works. But I am able to form my own opinions. I didn't just fall off the turnip truck."

[dinosaur]

I didn't spend your tax dollars to put new plumbing in.

[Noir]

Originally Posted by dinosaur

I didn't spend your tax dollars to put new plumbing in.

OMG You're so dense! I think you're just now arguing for the sake of arguing.


The argument was never about where the money came from. This whole 3 page debate was because "Why should such a thing cost so much?"; and so many people over and over already told you why.

[Happy]

in before 3 million dollar website tax

[quasi]

Originally Posted by Noir

OMG You're so dense! I think you're just now arguing for the sake of arguing.


The argument was never about where the money came from. This whole 3 page debate was because "Why should such a thing cost so much?"; and so many people over and over already told you why.

It kind of is though because if the Private sector wants to spend 3 million on a website it's there money. Tax dollars belong to the tax payer of that region so they have a right to get upset if they believe it's being spent poorly. It doesn't necessarily mean they're correct on the issue or have all the facts but they have the right to questions it as tax payers. If it was a private sector thing you couldn't even question it because who cares it's there money.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by Noir

I'm in the web industry and yeah I'm offended.

based on what you see and as someone in the industry, do you think that $3million is an accurate cost for the finished product? or do you think the costs are somewhat inflated and possibly a could have been managed better would it have been a private sector job?

not being a part of the project it's hard to say but i'd like to hear your 2 cents on it since you're in web design

@ Eff-1
I'm pretty sure your plumbing analogy DOES happen on construction projects

[Noir]

Originally Posted by GLOW

based on what you see and as someone in the industry, do you think that $3million is an accurate cost for the finished product? or do you think the costs are somewhat inflated and possibly a could have been managed better would it have been a private sector job?

not being a part of the project it's hard to say but i'd like to hear your 2 cents on it since you're in web design

@ Eff-1
I'm pretty sure your plumbing analogy DOES happen on construction projects

I would say it's in the ballpark. So the cost really doesn't surprise me.

Again, this is a very different website than your traditional static websites most commercial businesses use (and majority of web studios cater to) who more often than not only require around 10 subpages; and probably would not get as much traffic and exposure as the websites below.


Think of it in more or less the same scale as futureshop.ca, bestbuy.ca, londondrugs.ca where due to catering to dozens of departments, they have subpages totalling maybe in the hundreds.

The size and scale alone puts their cost up there. But what about the features they want to have to accompany all these subpages? usability features? perhaps e-commerce? security? a content management system so that they can have a non-web-familiar staff control the content of the multi-subpage website?




Honestly, when I heard of $3 million, I automatically thought it was these guys, not yellowpencil.

Graphically Speaking

Who's target market is corporate web client; and the project scale & cost is exactly right up their alley. Now, don't get surprised that they seperate their client books by the over-and-below the $10,000 mark.

At least back then in my student days they said they catered to work that's specifcally $500,000 and up; but I kid you not majority of their work is in the million dollar + range.

I believe the only reason why they started tapping into the lower markets (around $10k or less) was because back when the financial climate worsened about 3 or more years ago, they had to adjust and diversify their niche, and started looking to absorb the "lower" markets as well. (at least thats how they explained it to me).

[DragonChi]

Although, CoV isn't a large corperation, I've heard that Microsoft and the like spend much more than 3 mil for their website. Comparing what they have in terms of features, I would expect a method to grab much more data and information through CoV's website than exists now.

I would imagine they've got a HUGE database of engineering drawings, zoning maps, records that need to be dynamically linked through to their website. I would expect that much from the new one.

In addition to new types of applications online, so you don't have to go to city hall to do regulation work.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by Noir

I would say it's in the ballpark. So the cost really doesn't surprise me.

Thanks for the input

[Benz_05TSX]

I just found out I got into the wrong industry!! Damn it, should've studied and be a nerd..