Posts from — August 2008

HAHA!  Ok, so this is a bit simplified but it IS one way to live.

Thought for the day

Handle every stressful situation like a dog.
If you can’t eat it or hump it,
Piss on it and walk away.

"Cheap" Gas

When I drove up to the pump today, I had this little thrill for a moment when I saw how “cheap” gas was!  Under $4 / gallon!  I haven’t seen that in over 6 months!

Then it occurred to me how bad that really was.  I’m “gladly” paying $3.99 a gallon and feeling like I got a deal.  Hmm..  Is this market psychology coming to the forefront?  I have to say that gas at $4.80 a gallon made me stop driving places, so maybe this is just real supply and demand taking hold.

I don’t know.  I know that supply has been up and down recently, but this all just feels like someone has been “testing the waters” to see just how high the price could go.  A juvenile analysis, many would say, but you know what else “they” say – “Out of the mouth of babes…”

My brother was philosophizing about cheap clients on his blog.  He is spot on with his commentary.  I’m writing this as unfortunate proof that the sickness in not unique to the animation industry.

How is it that people can be this stupid?

Check out this advertisement for a web design job.

What the heck is his person thinking?  Hmm.  Let’s see.  I have to come to their office, train their sorry butt (because that’s really what they mean by “work with me on this”), and then I have to make 500 pages for their website.

OK.  Project understood.  Now, how much do they want to pay me for this?  UNDER $100!!!!!!!

UNDER $100.  Not even a hundred.  Under that.  Because, at $100, we’d be talking $0.20 a page, which is clearly too much to pay for my services.

Wow.

For anyone wondering, a half way decent website is going to cost you several thousand dollars.  Throw in e-commerce, and it is going to be more.  If you are flexible and willing to use open source stuff and are not a crazy design Nazi, you might be able to get it done for $5-7K.  If you want something that looks unique and professional, it will cost more.

If you want it based on a Content Management System so that you can update it yourself, it will cost even more.

If your site is worth having (financially), then its worth spending money on.  You don’t open a store and expect to do it with $500.  Why would anyone think that they can do it on the web?  ESPECIALLY if you are selling something!  At least with a store, people can come in and look at what you have, see who you are and make a decision to buy from you or not.  On the web, all they have to go by is your site.

Which site would you trust with your personal information? This one:

or this one:

Design matters.  Professionalism matters.  A look of legitimacy matters.  And, all of these are going to cost money.

Oh, and please don’t take this rant as evidence that I think I’m the best web specialist in the world.  Clearly I’m not.  I can’t design worth crap.  Yet, even I’m $250 an hour at my rack rate.  Do I do a lot of web work?  Yup, going on 15 years now.  Why would anyone expect to spend less on their online “entity” than they did on legally setting up their business?  Many lawyers are way more expensive than $250 an hour.  Find a web specialist than can command the same rate, and you won’t be sorry.  If you don’t, your site may look like this:

Anyway, I’m off my soapbox.  Sorry for all the suds.