Dear Source:
Emerson Simon says the Tourism Web site's price may not be out of line. I don't agree with that. If the V.I. Government is broke they should cut back on spending. A Web site doesn't have to cost that much to be good. That's not the way the Internet works. Probably one of the best travel Web sites that the V.I. competes with is Belize, produced locally.
People who create Web sites in the Caribbean typically don't charge $150,000, unless they are shysters trying to rip someone off.
Just because someone charges $150k and maybe did the Pepsi Web site or something, doesn't automatically mean they are worth the extra money. It just means they do know a bit of what they are doing, more so than the fly-by-night operations. They also probably maintain a large staff and office etc.
There are definitely people out there that will overcharge for anything relating to computers, meanwhile performing relatively simple and bad services. If you are easily fooled, these people prey on that.
Mr. Simon you also insinuate in your letter about "back room Web sites" being no good. This is nonsense.
Where have all the really successful Web sites come from? Yahoo, Ebay? Google? Where were they created? Not in some fancy office with 150k of starting capital.
Yahoo: a couple of college kids had a great idea….
Ebay: a housewife had a great idea…
Google (the #1 search engine now) was founded by Stanford doctoral students Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
And what sites have flopped terribly? Some of the most expensive sites on the Internet. Here are just a few examples of those "expensive sites."
NewMedia.com – out of business;
Wal-Mart – says they are temporarily closed;
etrade.com – laying off their staff right now;
AltaVista – being put out of business by some backroom web developers who started the company called Google.
The Internet and the World Wide Web have been created in backrooms. If Fortune 500 companies pay you that much to "think about some navigation," then it is because they don't know any better.
The Internet is about brainpower not money. You can't foolishly throw money at the Internet and expect it to work. I'm not saying I think Tourism will get a bad site, I'll reserve my judgement for later. But do I think they made a bad decision in spending so much? Yes, there are ways to create good sites at a fraction of what they have spent. They would have been better served if they would have hired locally and spent lots of money on fantastic pictures and someone to answer all that e-mail they will be receiving.
M. Bevan
Back Room Web Developer
