How did the Find Madeleine website cost £36.000?

[Alfred R Jones]

Transparent reporting on any project/company finances necessitates all significant expenditure to be itemised such that the overall build up is visible to those who have a right to be monitoring it.
If 36k is a single order value with an itemised schedule there is no need for further breakdown. If 36k is a summation of several different items and orders I would expect to see all those items listed. Pretty f*****g basic project management really. Except in this neck of woods of course 

So who has a right to be monitoring expenditure?  You?

[Angelo222]

The Madeleine website could have been put together for a couple of grand by any competent web hack.  The huge sum claimed was obviously spent on something else possibly a couple of new computers and other hardware to kit out an office.

[Alfred R Jones]

The Madeleine website could have been put together for a couple of grand by any competent web hack.  The huge sum claimed was obviously spent on something else possibly a couple of new computers and other hardware.

What about staff costs associated with the website?  There were 6 people working on it for a year.

[mercury]

What about staff costs associated with the website?  There were 6 people working on it for a year.

doing what?

 

6 people working a 35 hour week each on that paltry site? Youre havng a laugh or else being a poor apologist

[Jean-Pierre]

The Madeleine website could have been put together for a couple of grand by any competent web hack.  The huge sum claimed was obviously spent on something else possibly a couple of new computers and other hardware to kit out an office.

I am sure the website itself could have been put together for about that. No problem. And some staff costs but that would not amount to much.

The problem is volume.  The amount of traffic (reportedly 55m hits) would need a significant amount of bandwidth to accommodate, and in particular outgoing bandwidth.  And it seems a fair amount of the traffic was not just people downloading pages from the site, but downloading material.

The total cost works out at one fifteenth of a penny per hit, which I think is rather less than a quarter of what we were paying at the time (2007) although in fairness out traffic was nowhere as much.

[Angelo222]

I am sure the website itself could have been put together for about that. No problem. And some staff costs but that would not amount to much.

The problem is volume.  The amount of traffic (reportedly 55m hits) would need a significant amount of bandwidth to accommodate, and in particular outgoing bandwidth.  And it seems a fair amount of the traffic was not just people downloading pages from the site, but downloading material.

The total cost works out at one fifteenth of a penny per hit, which I think is rather less than a quarter of what we were paying at the time (2007) although in fairness out traffic was nowhere as much.

Hosting services offer various bandwidths at additional cost but it isn't that much in real terms.  I struggle to see how any small company can spend £36k a year on any website.

[Alfred R Jones]

Calum became involved after Madeleine's aunt, Philomena McCann, his former schoolteacher in Ullapool, approached him four days after the girl disappeared on May 3.

 

He said his staff spent between "12 and 20" hours each week on the website and wristbands. Although he claimed to have lost money on an earlier stunt for Premier League footballers to wear Madeleine t-shirts, he is pressing ahead with the distribution of T-shirts to the public in return for £10 donations.

 

Calum said: "We stopped every other thing we were doing that day and put the Find Madeleine site straight on. It's pretty much full-time doing the website and bands. We just invoice the fund, but it's not expensive compared with what other companies would charge. We have to account for how many hours are worked. It's not for us to decide what we are paid, but the fund insist we are."

http://www.mccannfiles.com/id34.html

[Miss Taken Identity]

lol @ cost of website.  Total piece of rubbish.  I could have done that for a lot less, few thousand. so why the need for a web site? an on line shop to sell stuff? for what? to make money is what! Grrrrreat marketing ploy. Oh doctors playing at being 'investigators' and 'entrepreneurs'...The whole get up leaves me with goose bumps!


 

[sadie]

lol @ cost of website.  Total piece of rubbish.  I could have done that for a lot less, few thousand. so why the need for a web site? an on line shop to sell stuff? for what? to make money is what! Grrrrreat marketing ploy. Oh doctors playing at being 'investigators' and 'entrepreneurs'...The whole get up leaves me with goose bumps!

%&5%£

Maybe they wouldn't have wanted you to produce their website.

It has ben admirable the way they tried everything to raise money for their search and to keep the public aware that Madeleine was missing and likely a findable little girl.


Guess you wouldn't have bothered if it had been your little one?

Easier to do nothing?

[stephen25000]

%&5%£

Maybe they wouldn't have wanted you to produce their website.

It has ben admirable the way they tried everything to raise money for their search and to keep the public aware that Madeleine was missing and likely a findable little girl.


Guess you wouldn't have bothered if it had been your little one?

Easier to do nothing?

What has the website achieved ?

[G-Unit]

Paying a lot of money for a website might have occurred to parents after a while, but after seven days? it was then set up in an afternoon using a template from  'godaddy.com'. Cost? Negligible.

[Benice]

Paying a lot of money for a website might have occurred to parents after a while, but after seven days? it was then set up in an afternoon using a template from  'godaddy.com'. Cost? Negligible.

Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing.  If they hadn't followed the advice of the experts and kept Madeleine's profile as high as possible by 'publicising' her (FB being one way of doing it) to give her the best chance of being found - then no doubt they would have been severely criticised for NOT doing that.

Damned if they do and damned if they don't - every step of the way.

[Jean-Pierre]

Paying a lot of money for a website might have occurred to parents after a while, but after seven days? it was then set up in an afternoon using a template from  'godaddy.com'. Cost? Negligible.

Cost of website - negligible.

But that is not the point.  It is the bandwidth to allow access to the website that cost the money. 

[Miss Taken Identity]

Cost of website - negligible.

But that is not the point.  It is the bandwidth to allow access to the website that cost the money.

Yes PJ.

That is very true, but no where near the money paid out! Why a web site? Gerry had a blog, there is face book and youtube, twitter.

This had become a 'business' money was being made on a little girls fate.

uncouth!

[sadie]

Yes PJ.

That is very true, but no where near the money paid out! Why a web site? Gerry had a blog, there is face book and youtube, twitter.

This had become a 'business' money was being made on a little girls fate.

uncouth!

Kate and Gerry were making money to progress the search for their missing daughter, not for themselves.

Amaral and Cristavao were making money for their own pockets

Where are you moral standards, Mistaken?