Chawlk

1. Drawar
2. Fenxy
3. Decaflon
4. Two Credits
5. Wriging
6. Loose Suits
7. Chixe
8. Dud3s
9. Wing Colors

 

Wired did a writeup of the site, which offers a little more background as to why Intel decided to create it. Having being created internally it just reaffirms my belief that this was an intern product.

I don't doubt it really was developed for that cost, internally (by low pay interns or not.)

The cause for bloat was probably a ton of business rules that weren't actually made with this kind of project in mind, but had to be followed. There were probably countless breakdowns in communication between the various members of the team that did it, the managers they had to report to, etc etc.

Yeah I'm a bit cynical when it comes to US corporate culture, but I see it time and time again. 70-90% of the work done in your average big american corporation simply doesn't need to be done for one reason or another.

At first I was going to say: well they probably paid most of that to a designer but looking at it, I've got to say it's a bit shoddy:

- Crappy stock header with random people bouncing around.
- Poorly made navigation buttons
- Where's the submit button? You can see it after some searching but that should have some contrast.

Considering this is a (poorly) templated Pligg install, I just can't see how $40k could have been spent on this. It's a few days of work...

Intel, if you're listening/reading/doing something that means my words here are taken in at your end, please, drop me an email next time you're planning something like this and I'll let you dump $40k on my doorstep and I'll give you a much better result within a couple of weeks.

As an example of stupid non-work and spending. Microsoft spent a year trying to get the Vista shutdown menu the way they wanted it.

What's even more annoying is the fact Intel is going to "use" people to go off and do business (or something money related) with cool software that we found.

Where is my benefit?

Devin, your benefit would be viewing the links other people submit, wouldn't it? Just like Digg, Clips, Delicious, etc?

Yeah, but thats only once the site has become popular and actually has links submitted. For the site to organically grow it needs to have that pull. For digg to get started, duh, it was the first one to do it so people went.

Is there really a big 'niche' demand for a site like this? Or can the same be done on digg, delicious, etc?

I think the issue is that we're thinking about this from a developer's standpoint. From a developer's standpoint -- it's super easy and simplistic.

But you need to look at it from an exec's standpoint. They need to spend their time finding the right group of developers to make it. They need to take the time to approve the PO. They need to take the time to meet with the developers and tell them what they want. Then they need to take the time to approve it with corporate standards, go through QA, ensure security, etc, etc. A lot of money is burned when the decision makers are separated from the developers.

Could you imagine how much more time Clips would have taken to develop if you guys had no control of the featureset or design? If you had to go through formal reviews after IA, design, and implementation and make tweaks to the client's demand?

Not to mention the disheartening state of "professionals" in our field... you gotta remember the level you & Mike are at is some of the top 5% of pros skillset-wise. A lot of money is burned on people that... well, suck at their jobs.

So yeah, $40k to me seems like a fair number to me.

You are making it sound like it was made from scratch though. Telling people you want a Digg for software and they go out install Pligg and add a header does require some type of planning, but not to the extreme that you make it out to be. It's a basic install of Pligg that only allows one category. I'm still not seeing $40k spent here no matter how you want to justify it.

I don't blame the people that got $40k out of it, but I do blame the people who paid for it for being suckered.

But you need to look at it from an exec's standpoint. They need to spend their time finding the right group of developers to make it. They need to take the time to approve the PO. They need to take the time to meet with the developers and tell them what they want. Then they need to take the time to approve it with corporate standards, go through QA, ensure security, etc, etc. A lot of money is burned when the decision makers are separated from the developers.

I do agree with this, just not in the case of Intel and this site.

Yeah but sorry... What's the remit for something like this?

"We want a digg clone please. Some people bounding around looking happy as the header logo would be nice. Nice and airy colour-scheme."

You can move backwards and forwards over design elements but as I said yesterday, it's still pretty ugly round the edges and it's pretty much a stock pligg install in terms of features.

I reckon that the $40k figure could just be a "WOW! look we spent so much money on this that it must be good".

Conspiracy, but well... look at it... I wouldn't pay $40 for that.

But see, that's the thing. Execs don't know about things like pligg, or even most of the time digg. They don't know to ask for a digg clone -- if it were that simple, they'd be developers.

You're assuming a lot here: that execs know what digg is, that execs know what pligg is, or even that their developer group of choice knew about pligg before building it! It could have easily taken someone 8 hours to review digg clones before even selecting the platform to start with. Then you're assuming this person knew PHP and not some more common language like J2EE or C#.

It's hard to rip yourself out of your point of view if you live in a developer-driven world.

I understand and agree with where you are coming from in other examples. However, this was an internal project so I am going to go under the assumption that executives had less to do with this than we think. Also...

Then you're assuming this person knew PHP and not some more common language like J2EE or C#.

If there isn't PHP expert working at Intel they are in more trouble than I thought.

If you know J2EE or C#, or any programming language you can pick up PHP in very little time.

If you know J2EE or C#, or any programming language you can pick up PHP in very little time.

I'd challenge you to take a look at a lot of "seasoned" comp sci people -- PHP is usually regarded as lowly and cumbersome to the vast majority of the developer community. Also, I would definitely argue against that... translating from a complete OO environment to a functionally-driven language is a mindblast, for sure.

Smart, passionate developers are so, so, different than the average developer in our field.

Kyle,

"lowly and cumbersome" or not, it's easy to pick up. They may not want to use it for whatever stupid reason, but that's not to say they can't. You just need a very basic understanding of programming, boolean logic, loops, etc.

Different tools for different jobs. Just for the record, when I run into people with attitudes like that, I fire them. Immediately.

I definitely see what Kyle is saying. I can picture 10 'managers' (execs, whatever you want to call them) being involved with a plethora of calls and/or meetings to discuss this. Then status updates. Then time spent actually implementing it (cost to a group of interns).

The time spent can obviously be translated to lots of dollars and cents..

Just because Intel has people that know PHP doesn't mean they have them in the department that wanted this...

I see focus groups and a lack of scruples web company running quickly to the bank.

From my own experience, $40k for a site like this is peanuts for a company the size of Intel.

I've been involved in the development of sites with less functionality that cost more (don't ask).

Rather than the money, the question to me is whether it was worth the investment of time and what the continuing time cost will be as opposed to spending it elsewhere on something 'more useful'.

Time will tell. My bet is that in 6 months time this site will be dying a slow death...

I'm pretty sure it is not even going to get off the ground. Not like Intel is going to go around advertising it.

A big company like Intel will waste a lot of times with meetings, drafts, paperwork, reports, and reviews. All that adds up and in the end they spend more on talking about the work than the actual work itself. That's how they get the $40k price tag.