A web of insanity
I visited a website last night.
I had a good poke around.
Or rather I tried to because the fucking thing kept going around in circles. I kept going into blind alleys where I couldnât get back out again. At one stage I clicked on a picture and bits started sliding all over the screen while a little shamrock insisted on redrawing itself endlessly.
I tried switching off javascript in my browser and the fucking site wouldnât work at all.
I tried testing it to see if there were errors in its code. There were.
I tried it out for speed. I wasnât impressed.
So why was I so interested in this website, you ask?
The reason is simple. I wanted to see where my money had gone.
Yes. I paid for that site. And so did every other Irish person, because it came out of gubmint coffers.
And how much did this website cost?
â¬1,000?
â¬2,000?
No.
â¬2,500,000.
Two and a half fucking million yoyos.
And they spent another HALF A MILLION buying the domain name off the Irish Times.
How can anyone justify spending that kind of money especially when times are hard?
How can any company justify charging that amount?
And to add insult to injury, that company isnât even Irish?
Will someone please tell my why that site was worth three million?
There's places to see on that site that have been closed for over two years! I also notice that the background images are hosted on a different site to the main domain. http://d5qsyj6vaeh11.cloudfront.net/images/destinations/backgrounds/d409_b_bg_1280x768.jpg
Designed by a committee I would say!
So the images for the site are held by Amazon? Nice.
It's a nice enough looking site at first glance but there is no way on earth that it's worth even a fraction of that money.
Iv just gone on the site as you say complete shite. They spend €2.5 million because these gobshites are not living in the real world then after spending all that money would you qive it to a foreign company.
Notice also more cash been wasted how do these fools get drawn into these situations.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/irish-troops-to-train-malians-in-fight-against-al-qaeda-rebels-3375508.html
What next now Ireland is playing with the big boys an Irish Aircraft Carrier ….'The Bertie Ahern'
Talk about blind leading the blind!
I thought we already had an aircraft carrier? The Mary Harney?
Heh, heh
It's your patriotic duty to promote and sanctify ireland.com as part of The Gathering 2013 mandate.
Hahahahahaha! Thanks for the laugh. Where would we be without a sense of humour?
Stumbling around Dáil Éireann, covered in blood.
We wish.
Holy cow! I am sure my 11 year old nephew could have done a better job on that website for $20 bucks. Somebody is laughing all the way to the bank, or the Bahamas!
You really don't have to look very long or hard to find websites that are far superior. As usual, they have tried to go for fancy coding and gimmickry rather than plain simple functionality. Maybe it was done by an 11 year old?
No real accountability is there?
Just imagine you are head of IT in a company that's already in receivership. You casually mention to the GM that you have just spent 3 million on a website. How many microseconds before you hit the pavement outside the front door?
I love the sarcastic tone on the gallery navigation: Next 'beautiful' image / Previous 'beautiful' image.
Also I'm not shure if this is a typo or deliberate attempt at local shpeak:
"Gaze at prehistoric gold jewellery, shuck an oyster in a lively festival or walk your way to stress-free bliss, you won't be short of things to do in Ireland" on this page http://www.ireland.com/what-is-available
Hah! Couldn't find the gallery, and it should be prominent? Probably just as well as photographs on a photograph background just leads to information overload.
Do you charge prices like that? 😀
Of course! More if it's responsive. Oh we're raking it in in the web business.
The gallery is cunningly concealed in the bottom right hand corner – 'View the background..'
I just viewed an "amazing" image. All I could see was sky as the foreground was hidden behind their horrible little widget thingys.
Any chance of a job?
I thought you'd left it all behind. Are you thinking of going back to it?
For fees like that I would even consider learning how to write websites.
"You won't be short of things to do in Ireland"
Maybe not; but unless you've a six figure overdraft on your credit card it won't take long til you'll be short of funds. The Celtic Tiger may be dead but the Rip-off Republic is still alive and well 🙁
… and that site is the greatest sample of a rip-off I have seen in quite some time.
Won't argue with you on that point
Yes but is there any info on the water meters contained within.
They have a map of water meters? Wouldn't surprise me. I wonder how many people's water bills it will take to pay for one website?
Yeah I remember when the Irish Times owned it, then they started charging money for it. So I haven't been on since. Didn't know the gubmint had bought it.
It's nice how they're showing off our skills as a nation of tech savvy, young, well-educated work force. Good ol' Gubmint (<—Im stealing this word. Love it, and it suits my lazy side)
That domain wasn't a bad investment? About €15 invested over twenty years returns €500,000?
The reason I use that word is that that shower don't deserve the respect of being called a government.
I agree. They certainly can't govern.
Complete waste of money as usual.
I am learning how to set up a website and it costs peanuts, less than £25
I just got a black site…that was it. Nothing but black. No images, no links, nothing…just black.
Update: Okay, I turned off my do-not-track extension (DNT+ for Firefox) and there was the site. So, unless you let them track you you can't see their beautiful images and get lost in their blind alleys? Okay, then. Guess I don't need to see it.