Copy Cats and Wannabes
Posted on 15 April, 2009 at 12:57 PM
There are already 16 Comments
About the Show
Today David and Marc come up with three things to rant about.
First thing is SA top bloggers have all got their cars wrong on idale.co.za. They should have an Alfa Romeo 8C. Then we rant about over charging to create a CSS and HTML site. And thirdly, you'd think that with all the investments put into big companies like FriendFeed and Facebook they would atleast come up with original designs.
Related Shows
- (3) Episode 189 - Using Inspiration Effectively
- (5) Episode 187 - Design with the Lights On
- (9) Episode 186 - Apples and Oranges
- (2) Episode 185 - Design like a Dictator
- (7) Episode 179 - It's All About Themes
User Comments
Rob MacKay 14 Apr, 2009 17:46:33 PM
Weeerd.
Good to have another episode... I was getting withdrawal! You break my routine if I don't have FTC to watch lol
Had a good weekend - kinda started Thursday for us... kids are home so its all a little mental... 3 kids 1 house - no sound proofing other than my headphones... *sob* - and then there's the wife...
Only joking :)
Good rant guys, are you serious about the amount of money people charge for standard CSS/XHTML ?? I have never heard it being that high!
- Rob
David Perel 14 Apr, 2009 17:49:19 PM
@iKab - Dude, excellent idea. I will tell Marc right away!
@Rob - No jokes dude, there are people out there charging stupid amounts for static sites. Its INSANE.
Max Stanworth 14 Apr, 2009 20:25:03 PM
Hey guys good spot, just looked at it now and it does indeed look like they are following twitter, to be honest i dont see a direction in friendfeed they are kind of aim less. i guess with a few tweaks who knows it could be even better than twitter *gasp
Also just done some research
Friendfeed was made in 2007 with $5 million funding Twiiter was made in 2006 with $55 million funding
source: www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/05/friendfeed-v-twitter-half-the-followers-in-five-months/
Gotta feel sorry for them really lol, but what do these companies do with all this money!!
Julie 14 Apr, 2009 20:34:40 PM
I love rant day so much.
Don't even get me started with Facebook, that word makes me want to cringe. I personally hate the layout, it doesn't make sense for the type of website it is. Second I despise that it's becoming a chat room...half the people who chat on each others "walls" are already talking to the person on some sort of IM program. Thirdly, I hate that I find out important things about my friends via a website, instead of in person, or whatever. Stupid. I Tea time.
Dave what does your shirt say?
Fabian 15 Apr, 2009 04:08:35 AM
Great rants boys! About time someone ripped into these phonys that rehash others designs...it comes down to one thing laziness:)
Pete Bernardo 15 Apr, 2009 04:55:22 AM
Hey Guys,
I think you are right and wrong with the css point. It is all perspective, someone new to the business might think you guys charge 7 or 8 times too much. Also I'm not sure if you are including the design aspect in this, I think you would agree that some designers are better than others and some have a lot more experience than others, clients will pay a premium for guys that they know will get it right. There is a big difference between telling a client it will take three weeks to code it and it only taking a day. Now if you guys are charging 20 dollars an hour and the other guy is charging 175 an hour that is a different story, one that I think is fair.
It is funny that you talk about super cars in the same video, one could argue that there are parallels, Ferrari is going to charge double what Porsche might for a car. You will have people tell you that they are willing to pay a premium for the Ferrari only because of the name, while others would say it is a waste and go with the 911, but for that person it was worth it just for the name.
David Perel 15 Apr, 2009 09:32:32 AM
@Max - I often wonder what they do with all that money dude. I think I need to ask someone like Charl Norman who is in that arena (start-up getting bought out arena).
@Julie - I did a whole review on the old new facebook towards the end of last year. You can see it on We Are not Freelancers. My T-shirt said 'He belongs to the group of Aces'
@Fabian - I wouldn't say laziness, I would just say that they are seeing a formula working pretty well on another site and have decided to put a spin on it.
@Pete - What I am saying is that a good amount of the people, who charge these huge amounts, are not that great at either design or css or html. It blows my mind when I look at some of the sites of the top brands in SA and then hear how much they paid for the junk.
I am all for charging a premium for quality but when what you getting is crap then please step aside at let the professionals take over :P
BTW: I would take a Ferrari over a Porsche annny day.
Sean 15 Apr, 2009 10:10:19 AM
Do you have a source (link) to verify that people are paying $20,000 for a static html/css site. I just can't believe that someone had the balls to charge that much for a static static site.
John Loudon 15 Apr, 2009 10:56:52 AM
In regards to the £20,000 for a website, It depends on the client and the studio doing the work. If your a studio that has work coming from all directions you would not charge £5000 you would up your prices, It also going on portfolio.
That works on 500 sites a week cant be done, so up your price to say £10,000 and half fall away thats still to much for most teams, so up your price again and then you might have a more achievable number of clients to work for and they will be on the larger side of the companies. Theres nothing wrong with doing sites for cheap but when your so busy you cant move you really need to up your costs.
For example; Microsoft? Time Warner? These guys know they are going to be paying a lot because their a big company and they want it to be polished and professional if you say well I could do what that guys doing for like 100th of the cost then the think, hmmm why? Whats he leaving out.( even if you not leaving out anything.) Live most industries its a balancing act.
I design logos for free as part of the web design process if required, quite a lot of the time, but I read a report from my old university showing they spent over £120,000 on a single logo. The company that created it is selling the rights as well as the design to use it in all mediums, sizes, and advertising. Small studios charge fairly to normal costs. Large studios charge more because they are bigger, better known and have a better portfolio.
If you work for huge clients then there is no reason why you should be scared of asking for a big cost. For the record we don't charge that were I work. I would say £3000 - £5000 is our average and thats just a little higher than what I used to charge for freelance works. Obviously a dynamic site would cost more than that.
Tom Wittlin 15 Apr, 2009 15:24:04 PM
7 Hours? To cut up any website? How can you put a figure on something so open ended as that!?
If you guys can hold true to your word, I'll come see you, unless you charge £12k an hour...
David Perel 15 Apr, 2009 15:29:40 PM
@Tom - If you have certain systems and css templates (I dont mean design, I mean default styles) in place, then it is very possible to splice a site in 7hrs. Of course there are exceptions, Liam Mckay sent us a design that took a bit longer but in my opinion that was an exception to the rule.
A home page and two sub pages should take between 5 and 7 hours to splice depending on the design. From the Couch was spliced in less than 7hrs, Obox Design's general site layout was done in much less than that. The can go on.
Charl Norman 21 Apr, 2009 11:33:13 AM
@David - Most startup funding goes to salaries and infrastructure costs
Jason 03 May, 2009 18:42:46 PM
Hey David, you just gave me a new time goal for splicing websites together. Do you have any articles, books, or suggestions for the systems and templates you mention? I would love to get my time down on that!
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Sanid 14 Apr, 2009 17:40:28 PM
Yeah your right with the css thing,I mean static pages are kind of out.Every design I make I just want to convert it to wordpress it doesnt matter if i want just to update a little section,add an admin option into the theme and its ok i think :) Man my english is really bad,but dont blame me
btw in the next episode you could let Marc tell us something about tea xD