peppericious Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 It was reported today that Tourism Ireland paid 2.5 million euro to have this site built. An additional 500k euro was paid for the 'ireland.com' domain name, according to the report. So, at today's exchange rate, we're talking about 3.3m USD for the build, plus 670k USD for the domain. Is this not a staggeringly high cost for the development?... Someone please tell me I'm missing something crucial that justifies this cost... Thoughts, anyone? Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 One of our clients paid over $18mil for a redesign. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408059 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christian F. Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Man... I wish someone paid me 18 mill USD for a redesign of their site. *sighs* In any case, I won't speculate too hard into whether or not that's a too steep a price, seeing as I don't know all of the details that went into it. What I will say, is that I find it rather disappointing that they haven't even managed to get the HTML to validate. Also, the site looks broken for me. With its disjointed, seemingly erratic, boxes clumped in the middle like that. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408062 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 What I will say, is that I find it rather disappointing that they haven't even managed to get the HTML to validate. Also, the site looks broken for me. With its disjointed, seemingly erratic, boxes clumped in the middle like that. Have to agree with this. I find that site hard to use. A usability study should have been done on the design. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408065 Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 (edited) For what seems to be an ASP.NET WebForms site, it looks really well done. Considering how the website is supposed to be for a whole country and not just some corporation $3.3M seems reasonable. [edit] As for usability, it's a bit slow but I'm fine with the design. Edited January 24, 2013 by requinix Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408066 Share on other sites More sharing options...
peppericious Posted January 25, 2013 Author Share Posted January 25, 2013 ... Considering how the website is supposed to be for a whole country and not just some corporation $3.3M seems reasonable. ... but, with all due respect, requinix, the cost shouldn't have anything to do with who's got the cheque book... whether that be a government, or an individual. The cost should be based on the amount of time and expertise required to build the site. As for 'reasonable', that's the very question: I know they're crude calculations but 3.3m would pay 16 people 100k a year for 2 years, even if they did no other work. By the way, requinix, are you saying that, given the tools the developers appear to have used, they've done a good job (but that if they'd used different tools, they could have done better?... I just wondered about what you said regarding ASP.NET WebForms...) As for usability, I find the site to be something of a mess. There seem to be boxes everywhere, placed in a seemingly haphazard fashion, which makes navigation very unintuitive. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408143 Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 ... but, with all due respect, requinix, the cost shouldn't have anything to do with who's got the cheque book... whether that be a government, or an individual. The cost should be based on the amount of time and expertise required to build the site. You really think I was alluding to price gouging? Please. Considering how this website is quite clearly intended to draw visitors to the country I would expect them to take more time and effort and money to make sure the site reflects the image they want. They want a pretty site? Will cost more. They want to research what draws people's interest? Will cost more. They want to showcase a little bit of everything that you can find around the country? Will cost more. By the way, requinix, are you saying that, given the tools the developers appear to have used, they've done a good job (but that if they'd used different tools, they could have done better?... I just wondered about what you said regarding ASP.NET WebForms...) I've written for WebForms. I hated it. It encourages the developer to write less HTML and rely on the framework more. While I do see aspects of that in the HTML, I don't see as much as I would expect for a "typical" implementation. They didn't take the lazy way out and I respect that. As for usability, I find the site to be something of a mess. There seem to be boxes everywhere, placed in a seemingly haphazard fashion, which makes navigation very unintuitive. Apparently I'm the only one but I like it. It's a little small and they could use more of the screen but it seems like the clumped boxes are mostly for the navigational pages. It's not like it's a business or community site where people will regularly visit. I think it's clear that they wanted something more attractive than functional, what with the background photos and heavy use of images, and that's what they got. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408231 Share on other sites More sharing options...
ignace Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 (edited) Fucking A. This website has achieved what EA nor Ubisoft or so many others ever could! http://www.ireland.com/nl-be <-- PERFECT!!!! Is that really so hard EA? Ubisoft? Like, really? Edited January 25, 2013 by ignace Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408269 Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted January 25, 2013 Share Posted January 25, 2013 ... but, with all due respect, requinix, the cost shouldn't have anything to do with who's got the cheque book... whether that be a government, or an individual. The cost should be based on the amount of time and expertise required to build the site. I'm guessing you probably have little or no experience trying to do projects for big companies or governments. There is a lot more cost associated to doing a project than the actual coding of the website. I have done plenty of projects with big company clients where we easily burn through 100 hours just talking about and planning and getting approval for shit...and when it came down to actually coding something..barely a handful of hours of actual coding. Spending (and charging for) 20 hours worth of < 1 hour worth of "coding" is not uncommon in the business world. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408287 Share on other sites More sharing options...
peppericious Posted January 25, 2013 Author Share Posted January 25, 2013 I'm guessing you probably have little or no experience trying to do projects for big companies or governments. There is a lot more cost associated to doing a project than the actual coding of the website. I have done plenty of projects with big company clients where we easily burn through 100 hours just talking about and planning and getting approval for shit...and when it came down to actually coding something..barely a handful of hours of actual coding. Spending (and charging for) 20 hours worth of < 1 hour worth of "coding" is not uncommon in the business world. No, indeed I don't have any experience working for big companies or governments. And, yes, I can well imagine planning and approval time makes up proportionately much more time than coding does. I'm not suggesting for a moment that all this time shouldn't be billed for. Still though, 33,000 hours of whatever at a hundred an hour? It's hard for me to imagine that this particular site could warrant such investment... Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408298 Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted January 26, 2013 Share Posted January 26, 2013 (edited) $3.3M over a year (which is how long it took, as far as I can find) at about $60/person/hour average over 45 weeks (40 hours/week) turns out to be about 30 people. At an average of $70/person/hour is 25 people. [edit] Someone in England can probably give more accurate wage figures. Edited January 26, 2013 by requinix Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408299 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psycho Posted January 26, 2013 Share Posted January 26, 2013 I have to second what .josh stated. I used to work for a corporation where the core business was not technology. I was in a small company that built web products used by the other companies within the corporation. We had just over a dozen people and we were able to produce good quality and quantity. Now I work for a very large organization that specializes in software and we have hundreds of people working on many pieces of a suite of products. It can take weeks of meetings and designs to make a simple decision. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408311 Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted January 26, 2013 Share Posted January 26, 2013 $100/hr is pretty damn cheap for an agency to be charging...I doubt many do, except for possibly a super small company of like 5 people... I would expect an enterprise level agency to be charging more like $250-$300/hr minimum. I don't really get involved in the money end of things at my job but I've seen a few SOWs of ours and from 3rd party agencies for clients we've worked together with, and that's what I've seen... Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/273610-33m-usd-to-build-a-website-what-are-your-thoughts/#findComment-1408312 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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