[webproducers] Re: The Magical Mystery Number - justify your existence!

["Tim Slavin (Red House Communications, LLC)" <tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting thread. I would add a few points.

I think what we're describing is the process by which a new medium
becomes common. High cost (usually due to the one-off nature of new
things) becomes low cost (because one-off processes are replaced by
repeatable processes that limit costs and, in some cases, drive up
profits).

While old is not as sexy as new, in some ways the challenges are far
more interesting because they become subtle. For example, how does a web
design or programming firm provide low cost high value internet
capability to their clients? How do you educate customers that what they
really want is not a content management tool with all the bells and
whistle but, instead, a basic publishing tool that maps to their
editorial process? (Or, if they don't have an editorial process, or
don't realize they have one, how do you show the customer how they
create and maintain content, then how to optimize their publishing
process?) How do you show a customer that building customer communities
online provides measurable value to their business (e.g., sales,
upsells, loyalty, branding)?

Personally, I find this stage a lot better to work in. Experience and
knowledge count more than being there first. Or being a relative.
Reducing complex processes to simple processes can be thrilling when its
not frustrating. In a way, it is a frontier as new as the now old
frontier.

I would also note that a focus on price ($5k, $15k) is all off. We
should (perhaps gently) focus the customer on what they get for that
price, how internet tools can support the process by which they find,
sell, support, and upsell their customers. As Chris notes, we should
focus on measurable value, showing customers that hiring someone
experienced and knowledgeable about, say, internet copywriting,
interface design, usability, information architecture can provide
measurable benefit to their bottom line. As prices come down, and the
measurable value becomes obvious, I think client discussions will move
from price to value. It's not selling out what makes the internet sexy
and fun so much as adding in the commercial element to what makes the
internet so powerful.

Tim

http://www.reachcustomersonline.com
http://www.timslavin.com


-----Original Message-----
From: webproducers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:webproducers-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Chris Hartley
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 6:55 AM
To: webproducers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [webproducers] Re: The Magical Mystery Number - justify your
existence!



> While I miss the good old days of $100k websites done by Razorfish
> agencies I can't say that I'm too let down.

Out, but only by a factor of 10.  And we're talking GB Pounds.  Those
were
the days indeed, but all good things come to an end.

Great advice though Michael: with marketing budgets down, we are all
having
to justify what we do to convince our clients what it is worthwhile and
represents a good way to spend their money.

With this in mind, it is always worth getting a couple of month's worth
of
statistics off your client's web-logging package before and after you
complete your work.

If you are getting it right, the improved site should show visitors
reading
more pages and spending more time on the site.  It is this sort of
empirical
evidence that can convince your next client that it is worth spending
more
than they did on the last site they had built for them by the kid down
the
block.

Other than this, if you are scrapping for the little jobs, if you can
offer
them a better service than they had before (i.e. Content management or
even
regular updates or maintenance, client extranets etc) then this may be a
deciding factor.  If you can't compete on price, then you need to offer
a
service that they can't get from an interested amateur.

Going back to Michael's final point, here I disagree, although I wish he
were right as it would be a lot more fun going to work:

>I also feel that with broadband being more
> standard that it will become a richer medium which will start to
> require budget items like animators and voice actors (and maybe even a
> video crew) as standard items.

I think what we will all find is that as broadband becomes standard, the
cost of transferring data will increase rapidly, so the need to produce
low
bandwidth sites will continue as our users will be literally paying to
access our content.

Currently, there is a huge surfeit in bandwith, and not that many
broadband
customers, so most broadband users pay only for the connection and the
lease
of the line.  Supply of bandwidth is high, demand is way below capacity
(some enormous fibre-optic links were built by the likes of PSI-Net and
Worldcom), the ISP's are desperate to get people to sign up, therefore
you
get data free with a connection.

As more and more people get online, the amount of rubbish flying around
the
networks will increase (how many copies of the same lame 5mb mpeg email
hit
you from how many different friends?).  Bandwidth is likely to be in
more
demand, and even before it is near capacity, our ISP's will start
charging
per MB.  

This is standard practice already in the hosting industry, and once
we're
hooked on speed, we'll be willing to pay for it.  The problem then is
the
end user is effectively on a meter - the more they use, the more it
costs.
For our clients too, the more their web server sends, the more it will
cost
them.  

Therefore I suspect that the pressures on us to produce low bandwidth
sites
for our clients will continue to be there, with very few exceptions.
The
exceptions will be the big media clients (like the BBC) that own
marketable
franchises that have the pull to attract users, and the credibility to
ensure that users are willing to pay for the data they haul off home.

For these clients, a video crew and voice actors are already standard.
For
the company with a $5k budget, I suspect that this will never be true.

>Also as the novelty wears out perhaps it will be seen as more of a
creative
>medium onto itself rather than a place to shovel content.

The reverse has happened - when the web was new being creative was cool.
Now it really is perceived as just a place to shovel content by company
bosses!

> At long last new media will no longer be
> "new" and this will become a medium for the masses (which it already
> is) - and that is a good thing in the long term.

Let's all not forget, one of the reasons why this is the medium for the
masses is the low cost of access, and the low cost of publishing.  This
was
the reason that people took to it in droves, so perhaps the view of
millions
of sites, all offering rich media is not too likely to happen soon..

Also, I think we can all safely drop the "new" now: The Netscape browser
is
nearly 10 years old, Amazon has been a public company for something like
6
years so this is no longer new.

What does everyone else think?

Cheers

Chris
(ex-razorfish, london)


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• References:
  • [webproducers] Re: The Magical Mystery Number - justify your existence!
    • From: Chris Hartley

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[webproducers] Re: The Magical Mystery Number - justify your existence!

[webproducers] Re: The Magical Mystery Number - justify your existence!