Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not purported as fact
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How much does it cost to run a website?
Well, from experience, I can tell you that exactly the same site can cost
a few tens of thousands each year to run, or it can cost millions.
Strangely enough, the difference is often down to exactly whose money
is being spent.
Take the dot-com boom for example...
A lot of silly people found themselves almost gifted huge amounts of
venture capital (other people's money) so they spent it like water,
building decidedly lacklustre websites while filling company car parks
with Porsches and Ferraris.
The Aardvark PC-Based Digital
Entertainment Centre Project
Yes, at last, this feature
has been updated again! (31 Mar 2003)
At exactly the same time, a lot of hard working, cash-poor operators
were scraping by on a shoestring budget and building sites and online
ventures that were every bit as good as, and sometimes even better than,
those other overly-funded, gold plated, monuments to excess.
Recently, with the purchase of NewZealand.com, our government has shown
that it also suffers from the "spending other people's money" syndrome -- and
I fear it's about to get a whole lot worse.
I refer to
a component
of yesterday's budget which contained an allocation of
$1.9 million per year for the
MarketNewZealand.com website.
Who's bright idea was this?
And why, given that they spent over $18,000 securing it, aren't they pointing
the domain name NewZealand.biz
at this trade/business-oriented site?
Now, while I don't doubt the importance of having such a site, I really have
to wonder at just how on earth they're going to justify spending $5,200 per
day on the damned thing?
Could it be that a fair whack of that dosh will go towards the hiring of
a virtual armada of "consultants" who will provide useful advice?
(you know -- bright ideas like "lets pay $1m for a domain name")
Where else could that money be going?
Let's see, hosting should be a fairly trivial cost. There are places in the
USA that will give you a year's hosting for under US$70 with no limit on
traffic. If you want to be patriotic and "buy NZ-made", there are plenty of
local firms that will host your server or your website for just a few hundred
or few thousand dollars a year.
What about web-design?
Good web design is not cheap (and cheap web design is seldom good) but if
significant changes are planned, a couple of skilled workers could be hired
to do the job in-house and leave you with plenty of change out of $160K a year.
Perhaps it's content generation?
Well a couple of competent journos or writers could easily be had for a total
of $120K per year or less.
Support? I have yet to see any website that really requires a full-time
webmaster or support person -- if it does then those who built the site need
their backsides smacked.
So just where will that $1.9 million each year go?
It's our money and we should be told just who's going to be getting the new
Porsche for "services rendered".
But hey, it's just $1.9m right? As part of the nation's entire budget, it's
just a drop in the bucket, correct?
Well hell, I wish the taxman would take this attitude to the few thousand
dollars I owe the IRD. Hey, I'm a pretty mean-hand at building, running and
marketing a website, maybe we can do a deal :-)
If any Aardvark readers have an opinion on today's column or
want to add something you're also invited to chip in and
have your say.
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publication of Aardvark, the bills still exceed the income by a fairly
significant amount. It is with this in mind therefore that I'm once
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value from this daily column and news index. I've gone the PayPal
way of accepting donations because the time involved in processing a bunch
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what you were intending :-)
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