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Take the latest crazy investment of taxpayer dollars for instance: NewZealandNow.info.

The goal of this site has been stated as an attempt to lure ex-pat Kiwi's back to Godzone so as to help sate our growing demand for, and solve the increasing dearth of, skilled workers.

Let's take a look at how well they've done.

Well for a start they've spent over $800K on this website [edit: and an associated advertising campaign], which sounds like a snotload of money for what is effectively a fairly static group of webpages.

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I also shudder when I see that there's no alternative (apart from a site-map) to the overtly "look how clever the webdesigner is" use of Flash for navigation from the front page. Indeed, the bulk of the front page is allocated to "pretty" Flash-based content.

Now doesn't it seem likely that a goodly percentage of "NZ's best and brightest" (NZBAB) expats will be exactly the kind of folks who will have gotten so pee'd off with the over-use and abuse of Flash applets that they've installed Flash-blockers on their browsers?

The reality is also that the same functionality could have been provided using HTML at a lower cost, both in terms of bandwidth and development costs -- or at least a text-base menu could have also been included.

Let's not forget that some of our NZBAB are visually impaired and therefore may find navigating a Flash-only front page to be a bit of a mission -- or do we not want anyone who's less than physicaly perfect returning to our shores???? Tsk, tsk, tsk - isn't this somewhat discriminatory?

The other thing that those who conceived this site fail to appreciate is that a huge percentage of NZBAB expats are already using the Net to stay in touch with events, trends and conditions here in NZ. They already keep an eye on local news, blogs and other websites that provide a perfect window into the state of the nation.

What's with the use of a .info domain? If New Zealand is so "cool" then surely we'd be proud to promote the .nz version of the site (which currently redirects to the .info domain).

And why choose a domain name for which the .com version has already been taken by someone else and may thus require an expensive and protracted bunfight to avoid spoofing or cybersquatting (anyone remember NewZealand.com ???) You think they'd learn eh?

So what about the info the website offers? Is it the kind of stuff that an NZBAB expat might want to know?

By and large it's all fairly relevant and straightforward, even if presented through somewhat rose-tinted glasses. I also found some of the articles to be *very* lightweight and lacking substance. Take this one for example.

How much better/worse off were Duncan and Prudence after the move?

What did they miss most about their previous location?

What were the three things they most enjoyed about returning home?

What were the worst aspects of being back in Godzone?

These are the kind of things that *I* would want to know if I were an expat considering a return home.

I guess the bottom line is "will this site actually affect the numbers of NZBAB expats returning to New Zealand?"

The answer to this is pretty hard to predict but (as usual) I have a somewhat cynical perspective.

I think that I (and 95% of the country's webdesigners) could have knocked up a site that was just as (if not more) functional for a snot-load less than $800K. I think we'd have also at least performed some focus groups to find out what it is that expats want to know while mulling the option of returning home.

And that domain name fiasco -- well let's not go there! Wouldn't it be a laugh if the battle over newzealandnow.com was lost and it was turned into a porn site :-)

Are you an expat Kiwi considering a return home? Do you find the NewZealandNow website provides $800K worth of info or is it simply a bit "lightweight"?

What would *you* want to know about NZ "now" to help you make a decision about returning?

Tell us all and see what others have to say in The Aardvark Forums

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