6 ms·

This site cost $18m to make

51 points by instakill 15y ago

instakill 15y ago
Here's the story: http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8676-four-seasons-unveils-18m-website http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8676-four-seasons-unveils-18...
- iaskwhy 15y ago
  Kinda off-topic, from the article: "The 2012 Four Seasons Luxury Trends Report from Four Seasons reveals that 71% of its customers bring a smartphone with them on their travels and 61% bring a tablet device." That's a lot. And even so, my only two experiences at luxury hotels meant no wifi available in the room. And daily paid ethernet. I understand being there meant me or my company have money but I'd like to stop being ripped off after paying so much to stay there.
  - mrfairladyz 15y ago
    On a related note to the off-topic point, visiting the website from a mobile device yields a surprisingly good mobile interface.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  The article talks a lot about the new site being an effort to increase their online bookings. I can see that for a luxury brand hotel, online bookings might be lower than for say holiday inn express. Part of what you're paying for is personal attention, so the people who stay there might want that to extend to the booking experience. How do you overcome that in an online booking? I don't think they did, but how would you approach it?
josefresco 15y ago
It's weird, some elements of the design look to be 5-6 years old in style, while other are clearly inspired by Microsoft's Metro UI (which is good). The small font size and traditional 'luxury hotel' look of the header/footer really ruin it for me (example look how the tagline in the tiny logo is almost unreadable). Where they succeed (mostly) is in the page content layout and design. Also, shrinking my browser window doesn't dynamically resize or shift the layout so -1 for unresponsiveness. I was on a sub page of the Boston location which may not have that flexibility but for 18M and 2012 ... it should.
- thomasgerbe 15y ago
  "Also, shrinking my browser window doesn't dynamically resize or shift the layout so -1 for unresponsiveness. I was on a sub page of the Boston location which may not have that flexibility but for 18M and 2012 ... it should." Responsive design also limits design/ux decisions especially on their content pages which have a non-linear grid system and shouldn't be universal. I'm not for or against responsive web design but I think it should be contextual. I haven't seen many sites that have won me over.
DrinkWater 15y ago
Lets assume they received a custom CMS with the website, some custom frontend-plugins, development of flash entities, interfaces to in-house IT-systems, a tracking suite, hosting, QA, send some photographers around the world to get high quality pictures, consulting....Still i cant figure out HOW this can cost $18M (and i am a technical consultant in digital agency, working exclusively for enterprise customers).
- cfontes 15y ago
  I also do that for a living... and they got stolen or their management team sucks badly. With 18M you can build 18 of that site. For some minutes I thought 18M was 18k(which would be too low)... then I got it, and got even more surprised. The only explanation I can think of is that they didn't had a IT department and had to Hire and buy every single person/thing they needed including hosting their own site on their own servers and buying their own Backbone :D
- tintin 15y ago
  I think it's the complete marketing package. The website is just the result of a complete new marketing strategy. But still.. that's some serious money thrown away.
- tacheshun 15y ago
  They didn't receive a custom CMS. Actually, they used Adobe CQ5 for this.
casca 15y ago
If you've never been involved in the building of a website for a large company then this might come as a surprise. Getting agreement for so many things would have taken many people months of time. "Lean Startup" where things don't work on day 1 is not an option. Include focus groups, armies of usability testing, all sorts of integration misery and this doesn't seem a crazy big number. They don't get 4 developers who'll work for 2 years for 12 hours a day for no money.
- alexchamberlain 15y ago
  4 developers for 2 years doesn't cost $18million...
  - cfontes 15y ago
    20 devs/DBA/IT for 2 years would cost you something like 4M, 8M at max(Super Salaries for everybody) ! The costly part is the "Management" which creates the bureaucracy so other people can hang out in the project controlling excel tables while those 20 bastards work their asses off.
    - thomasgerbe 15y ago
      I don't think that includes consultants that helped the design, user experience, and architecture. Since they went with a pretty well known interactive agency, it probably cost them more than three million.
    - omgtehlion 15y ago
      please add taxes and cost of workplace (office rent, equipment, etc)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- mtrimpe 15y ago
  From what I can tell it looks like a fairly decent deal. The site is snappy, visually impressive and with a well thought out user experience, tasteful upsell and in general clear communication. At least it launched and managed to avoid all the pitfalls of corporate politics leading to bad architectural choices leading to a very expensive and poor implementation, which is a much more difficult challenge by itself than most people realize. It's important to remember that: * very few great developers/designers will work for Four Seasons on the cheap. * it'll mostly have been well paid consultants earning $100/hr and up * it is very likely that the project has had multiple iterations to reach it's current state, all hidden behind a single big release.
rattler 15y ago
$18 Mil and blurry images - http://cdn.fourseasons.com/content/dam/fourseasons/images/web/CAW/CAW_068_aspect16x9.jpg/jcr:content/renditions/cq5dam.web.1280.720.jpeg http://cdn.fourseasons.com/content/dam/fourseasons/images/we...
thevictor 15y ago
Well that trumps this website http://www.bankwest.com.au/ http://www.bankwest.com.au/ which cost $5 million to make.
- meric 15y ago
  Did that come with the online banking site, or is $5M just for that one page?
  - pan69 15y ago
    Online Banking is usually done internally by banks. The front facing consumer sites are usually done by an agency. I know that Host was doing work for Bank West. Anyone knows if they also did this as well or are they just above the line for this client?
brador 15y ago
So here's how you do it. You write a spec sheet, bid low. You want to win the bid. Say 6 mil, maybe even 5. Then half way through the project, say you need another 3 mil to finish, and without that you can't finish it. Sunk costs? don't worry, the flip rate on staff means the sunk costs were the last guys problem. Continue asking for more until you can't squeeze any more juice out of the orange that is your client. Congratulations, you just won at corporate politics. Ship whatever you've done and say it's the best you could do. Done.
- raldi 15y ago
  ...and lost at contract law.
  - brador 15y ago
    11 Billion: http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/waste/2011/08/system-failure-11-billion-nhs-system-finally-abandoned-slamming-high-bill-taxpayers.html http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/waste/2011/08/system-failur...
    - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
      I'd like if someone could please explain why NHS don't negotiate a job price (and maybe even a 20% contingency fund) and then pay that price for the job to be done. 50% up front, waymarked payment points and a refund for failure to complete. Given the budgets here it seems we should have a MP as minister for NHS IT systems.
sajidnizami 15y ago
Odd. Every other place in Middle East is listed, except the one with the most tourist attractions. Where is Dubai?
- ljf 15y ago
  Not odd - it closed down a while back: http://www.fourseasons.com/dubaigolf/message0609/ http://www.fourseasons.com/dubaigolf/message0609/
tucaz 15y ago
I'm surprised that no one yet said anything about the 18M being a fake number. These guys do this all the time. They spend 10M and release to the press that it was 20M. I work(ed) for more than one company that uses this strategy. The whole idea is to get everyone to think that you are bigger than you really are. Of course one can spend 18M on a bad project, but you guys covered it already...
- dotjosh 15y ago
  This is exactly it. Not to mention all of the "internal" resources/time they put into that number. I also imagine they did an overhaul of their internal booking system, and possibly increased full-time staff (project managers, support, and sales staff) to handle the new demand.
tomelders 15y ago
I suppose only the client can decide wether that's money well spent or not. And while I think the price is high, it's certainly not the worst hotel website I've seen, and is probably one of the better ones.
plf 15y ago
How? I've just started experimenting with web development and I can't figure out how it could possibly cost that much. Maybe there is a whole world I haven't seen yet, but if they had used the latest open source libraries/frameworks that do half the work for you, would it have cost that much?
- unreal37 15y ago
  I work in a digital agency, similar to the one who did this. 80% of the budget is spent in the requirements phase. More than a year doing designs, sending 20 people down to see the client every trip, business requirements gathering, market analysis, and such. $18M over 24 months is only $750K per month burn rate. At the typical agency rate of $150/hr, this is 35 people working on this project. Only 2 of them are developers. :)
marknutter 15y ago
The best way to kick the hornets' nest over at HN is to mention lots of money exchanging hands (i.e. color.com). Nothing brings out the self-righteous geek in us than hearing about other developers getting paid.
- zedshaw 15y ago
  Right. Developers getting paid. You hear that sound? Listen real carefully. It's the sound of our profession being flushed down a toilet because your buddies are cheating businesses out of their money by charging too much for too little.
  - gaius 15y ago
    You've both made the classic fallacy of assuming that writing some code is all there is to do. For example, perhaps a lot of that money went on paying a photographer and his entourage to fly around the world.
  - jbooth 15y ago
    Well, it's probably more like the company charging themselves too much by having a ridiculously mismanaged process for getting the work done. Incoherent, produced-by-committee specs that don't actually have any explanation about how the soup of buttons and buzzwords is supposed to work, ridiculous management overhead.. it's probably not even the developers getting paid that much. Nobody walked off with that money, it was pissed away in 6-hour meetings.
  - eykanal 15y ago
    Do you hear that sound? It's the sound of your buddies charging appropriately for their skills while you consistently undercharge.
    - DanBC 15y ago
      So a competent version of this site would cost how much?
ed209 15y ago
these kind of headlines are easy, the actual story behind it determines value for money. For example, this title is about as insightful as - BP spent £136,000,000 on a "new logo" ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1350238/BP-attacked-over-136m-logo-as-petrol-prices-soar.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1350238/BP-attacked-o...
mgcross 15y ago
I wonder if photography was rolled into that cost? I'm sure some shots are reused and rights-managed stock, but for those that aren't, the costs of planning, lighting, rigging, stylists, talent, etc. would be significant. And it looks as though each location has 30+ photographs: http://www.preview.fourseasons.com/find_a_hotel_or_resort/ http://www.preview.fourseasons.com/find_a_hotel_or_resort/
alevans4 15y ago
Is there an older story on the internet than a software project overruns budget or doesn't get finished? I'd be more interested to see something like, software project costs $18M and here's where we went wrong, or software project costs $18M and here's why the client got their money's worth.
revorad 15y ago
Lesson learnt: charge more.
beambot 15y ago
If the website redesign results in 1% more direct conversions on their website (versus discount "Hotels.com" outfits), then $18M is probably a fairly decent "investment". Perhaps the developers were smart and made a value proposition rather than a pure hourly / salary proposition. Others on HN have talked about this distinction extensively, so try to avoid that little mental roadblock when considering the amount that they paid for the redesign.
funkah 15y ago
I think it looks great. And, it's in my interest for websites to cost as much as possible, so I have no problem with this. I don't understand that thing nerds do where they brag about how they could have done it in a weekend for $15 and some Mountain Dew. Well, I do understand it ("look how smart I am"), but it's still obnoxious.
coenhyde 15y ago
From what I can tell: - It's hosted on AWS - Their CDN is cloudfront - 2 elastic AWS loadbalancers - Apache webserver, probably with Tomcat - Java session id in cookie I assumed the site would have been either a Java or .Net site. I would have done it for $12 million ;)
luhsna 15y ago
If they spent 18M for this then they should probably fire their CTO or whoever approved this budget. IF
spydum 15y ago
Judging by the URL structure, this is built on Adobe (formerly Day)'s Communique 5.x platform. The CQ Platform gives you a ton of these graphical widgets and social interaction out of the box, though there is still plenty of development to write a full reservation system. It also handle mobile rendering, site templating, and multiple languages quite well. So while it sounds like people are seeing "a single website for $18m", I'd be willing to wager that was the cost for the entire content platform (CMS/Social/Mailings/Reservation system. So now they would have access to very advanced templating design, multi-lingual components. The amount of time it would take them to roll out multiple country and language sites would be dwarfed in comparison to any other platform. That $18m may be a big upfront costs, but might well pay for itself if they intend to use for other properties and across multiple regions/languages.
- notjustanymike 15y ago
  Definitely CQ - pretty impressive in that regard. Having worked with the platform, I can tell you -good- CQ5 developers are very expensive and hard to acquire. Conde Nast is learning this the hard way after they committed to converting all their properties over to CQ.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - spydum 15y ago
    True enough, but with a total cost of $18m, I'd guess they went full consultancy -- not done in house. Completely unrelated, does MJK mean anything to you?
usedtolurk 15y ago
The website itself is just be the tip of the iceberg - it would need to talk to multiple back-end systems. $18m wouldn't be unreasonable if the project required complex legacy integration and/or re-design of underlying infrastructure.
Lucadg 15y ago
I've been working on an online reservation CMS for more than 2 years now and this seems quite a good result. Maybe I would have done some things differently, such as location selection: the drop down is really long, the could have used an autosuggest. But everybody likes different things so I can only assume their usability tests suggested otherwise. The price is not really something we can judge: it could be either fair or too much. Who knows, this may be a very flexible framework they'll use for the next X years (good) or a hard to maintain website which will cost them even more to keep alive. We can't really judge. I wish I had 18 Millions to develop mine. Or maybe not, I'm happy with scarce resources, so little goes wasted.
ricardobeat 15y ago
So? It's a pack of ~90 sites + the main one, content management systems that will probably be used by hundreds, photography.. the cost is not surprising at all. They could do a better job of graceful degradation for javascript disabled without much effort, but I wouldn't blame them - everyone here seems to support the opposing mindset too.
md224 15y ago
Anyone else check the source and notice they're importing jQuery twice?
sirbrad 15y ago
The site is awesome. The UX is spot on! I think people have seen the price tag and expected something unimaginable. Not quite sure why they chose to use an Adobe application for the cms side of things.
pragmatic 15y ago
Is it just me or is the text at the bottom of each picture (with the location, temp, etc) unreadable in at least half the locations? The white on white is a bad idea. This must be a "marketing" driven site where "good ideas" trump usability. I'm sure they got an award or three for this cutting edge design.
justin_vanw 15y ago
I bet this site (Wynn Las Vegas) costs $18m per year in lost opportunities, because it's an unusable mess. http://wynnlasvegas.com/ http://wynnlasvegas.com/ It's slow, often times out, randomly doesn't work. The four seasons may have over paid for their site, but it's incredibly nice.
- mustardhamsters 15y ago
  I think for $18m they're probably making significantly more than that back. That really is a damned fine website, and you can tell that every piece of it has been double checked and agonized over with the client.

51 points by instakill 15y ago

Here's the story: http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8676-four-seasons-unveils-18m-website http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8676-four-seasons-unveils-18...

iaskwhy 15y ago
Kinda off-topic, from the article: "The 2012 Four Seasons Luxury Trends Report from Four Seasons reveals that 71% of its customers bring a smartphone with them on their travels and 61% bring a tablet device." That's a lot. And even so, my only two experiences at luxury hotels meant no wifi available in the room. And daily paid ethernet. I understand being there meant me or my company have money but I'd like to stop being ripped off after paying so much to stay there.
- mrfairladyz 15y ago
  On a related note to the off-topic point, visiting the website from a mobile device yields a surprisingly good mobile interface.
waterlesscloud 15y ago
The article talks a lot about the new site being an effort to increase their online bookings. I can see that for a luxury brand hotel, online bookings might be lower than for say holiday inn express. Part of what you're paying for is personal attention, so the people who stay there might want that to extend to the booking experience. How do you overcome that in an online booking? I don't think they did, but how would you approach it?

josefresco 15y ago

It's weird, some elements of the design look to be 5-6 years old in style, while other are clearly inspired by Microsoft's Metro UI (which is good). The small font size and traditional 'luxury hotel' look of the header/footer really ruin it for me (example look how the tagline in the tiny logo is almost unreadable). Where they succeed (mostly) is in the page content layout and design. Also, shrinking my browser window doesn't dynamically resize or shift the layout so -1 for unresponsiveness. I was on a sub page of the Boston location which may not have that flexibility but for 18M and 2012 ... it should.

thomasgerbe 15y ago
"Also, shrinking my browser window doesn't dynamically resize or shift the layout so -1 for unresponsiveness. I was on a sub page of the Boston location which may not have that flexibility but for 18M and 2012 ... it should." Responsive design also limits design/ux decisions especially on their content pages which have a non-linear grid system and shouldn't be universal. I'm not for or against responsive web design but I think it should be contextual. I haven't seen many sites that have won me over.

DrinkWater 15y ago

Lets assume they received a custom CMS with the website, some custom frontend-plugins, development of flash entities, interfaces to in-house IT-systems, a tracking suite, hosting, QA, send some photographers around the world to get high quality pictures, consulting....Still i cant figure out HOW this can cost $18M (and i am a technical consultant in digital agency, working exclusively for enterprise customers).

cfontes 15y ago
I also do that for a living... and they got stolen or their management team sucks badly. With 18M you can build 18 of that site. For some minutes I thought 18M was 18k(which would be too low)... then I got it, and got even more surprised. The only explanation I can think of is that they didn't had a IT department and had to Hire and buy every single person/thing they needed including hosting their own site on their own servers and buying their own Backbone :D
tintin 15y ago
I think it's the complete marketing package. The website is just the result of a complete new marketing strategy. But still.. that's some serious money thrown away.
tacheshun 15y ago
They didn't receive a custom CMS. Actually, they used Adobe CQ5 for this.

casca 15y ago

If you've never been involved in the building of a website for a large company then this might come as a surprise. Getting agreement for so many things would have taken many people months of time. "Lean Startup" where things don't work on day 1 is not an option. Include focus groups, armies of usability testing, all sorts of integration misery and this doesn't seem a crazy big number. They don't get 4 developers who'll work for 2 years for 12 hours a day for no money.

alexchamberlain 15y ago
4 developers for 2 years doesn't cost $18million...
- cfontes 15y ago
  20 devs/DBA/IT for 2 years would cost you something like 4M, 8M at max(Super Salaries for everybody) ! The costly part is the "Management" which creates the bureaucracy so other people can hang out in the project controlling excel tables while those 20 bastards work their asses off.
  - thomasgerbe 15y ago
    I don't think that includes consultants that helped the design, user experience, and architecture. Since they went with a pretty well known interactive agency, it probably cost them more than three million.
  - omgtehlion 15y ago
    please add taxes and cost of workplace (office rent, equipment, etc)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
mtrimpe 15y ago
From what I can tell it looks like a fairly decent deal. The site is snappy, visually impressive and with a well thought out user experience, tasteful upsell and in general clear communication. At least it launched and managed to avoid all the pitfalls of corporate politics leading to bad architectural choices leading to a very expensive and poor implementation, which is a much more difficult challenge by itself than most people realize. It's important to remember that: * very few great developers/designers will work for Four Seasons on the cheap. * it'll mostly have been well paid consultants earning $100/hr and up * it is very likely that the project has had multiple iterations to reach it's current state, all hidden behind a single big release.

rattler 15y ago

$18 Mil and blurry images - http://cdn.fourseasons.com/content/dam/fourseasons/images/web/CAW/CAW_068_aspect16x9.jpg/jcr:content/renditions/cq5dam.web.1280.720.jpeg http://cdn.fourseasons.com/content/dam/fourseasons/images/we...

thevictor 15y ago

Well that trumps this website http://www.bankwest.com.au/ http://www.bankwest.com.au/ which cost $5 million to make.

meric 15y ago
Did that come with the online banking site, or is $5M just for that one page?
- pan69 15y ago
  Online Banking is usually done internally by banks. The front facing consumer sites are usually done by an agency. I know that Host was doing work for Bank West. Anyone knows if they also did this as well or are they just above the line for this client?

brador 15y ago

So here's how you do it. You write a spec sheet, bid low. You want to win the bid. Say 6 mil, maybe even 5. Then half way through the project, say you need another 3 mil to finish, and without that you can't finish it. Sunk costs? don't worry, the flip rate on staff means the sunk costs were the last guys problem. Continue asking for more until you can't squeeze any more juice out of the orange that is your client. Congratulations, you just won at corporate politics. Ship whatever you've done and say it's the best you could do. Done.

raldi 15y ago
...and lost at contract law.
- brador 15y ago
  11 Billion: http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/waste/2011/08/system-failure-11-billion-nhs-system-finally-abandoned-slamming-high-bill-taxpayers.html http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/waste/2011/08/system-failur...
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    I'd like if someone could please explain why NHS don't negotiate a job price (and maybe even a 20% contingency fund) and then pay that price for the job to be done. 50% up front, waymarked payment points and a refund for failure to complete. Given the budgets here it seems we should have a MP as minister for NHS IT systems.

sajidnizami 15y ago

Odd. Every other place in Middle East is listed, except the one with the most tourist attractions. Where is Dubai?

ljf 15y ago
Not odd - it closed down a while back: http://www.fourseasons.com/dubaigolf/message0609/ http://www.fourseasons.com/dubaigolf/message0609/

tucaz 15y ago

I'm surprised that no one yet said anything about the 18M being a fake number. These guys do this all the time. They spend 10M and release to the press that it was 20M. I work(ed) for more than one company that uses this strategy. The whole idea is to get everyone to think that you are bigger than you really are. Of course one can spend 18M on a bad project, but you guys covered it already...

dotjosh 15y ago
This is exactly it. Not to mention all of the "internal" resources/time they put into that number. I also imagine they did an overhaul of their internal booking system, and possibly increased full-time staff (project managers, support, and sales staff) to handle the new demand.

tomelders 15y ago

I suppose only the client can decide wether that's money well spent or not. And while I think the price is high, it's certainly not the worst hotel website I've seen, and is probably one of the better ones.

plf 15y ago

How? I've just started experimenting with web development and I can't figure out how it could possibly cost that much. Maybe there is a whole world I haven't seen yet, but if they had used the latest open source libraries/frameworks that do half the work for you, would it have cost that much?

unreal37 15y ago
I work in a digital agency, similar to the one who did this. 80% of the budget is spent in the requirements phase. More than a year doing designs, sending 20 people down to see the client every trip, business requirements gathering, market analysis, and such. $18M over 24 months is only $750K per month burn rate. At the typical agency rate of $150/hr, this is 35 people working on this project. Only 2 of them are developers. :)

marknutter 15y ago

The best way to kick the hornets' nest over at HN is to mention lots of money exchanging hands (i.e. color.com). Nothing brings out the self-righteous geek in us than hearing about other developers getting paid.

zedshaw 15y ago
Right. Developers getting paid. You hear that sound? Listen real carefully. It's the sound of our profession being flushed down a toilet because your buddies are cheating businesses out of their money by charging too much for too little.
- gaius 15y ago
  You've both made the classic fallacy of assuming that writing some code is all there is to do. For example, perhaps a lot of that money went on paying a photographer and his entourage to fly around the world.
- jbooth 15y ago
  Well, it's probably more like the company charging themselves too much by having a ridiculously mismanaged process for getting the work done. Incoherent, produced-by-committee specs that don't actually have any explanation about how the soup of buttons and buzzwords is supposed to work, ridiculous management overhead.. it's probably not even the developers getting paid that much. Nobody walked off with that money, it was pissed away in 6-hour meetings.
- eykanal 15y ago
  Do you hear that sound? It's the sound of your buddies charging appropriately for their skills while you consistently undercharge.
  - DanBC 15y ago
    So a competent version of this site would cost how much?

ed209 15y ago

these kind of headlines are easy, the actual story behind it determines value for money. For example, this title is about as insightful as - BP spent £136,000,000 on a "new logo" ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1350238/BP-attacked-over-136m-logo-as-petrol-prices-soar.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1350238/BP-attacked-o...

mgcross 15y ago

I wonder if photography was rolled into that cost? I'm sure some shots are reused and rights-managed stock, but for those that aren't, the costs of planning, lighting, rigging, stylists, talent, etc. would be significant. And it looks as though each location has 30+ photographs: http://www.preview.fourseasons.com/find_a_hotel_or_resort/ http://www.preview.fourseasons.com/find_a_hotel_or_resort/

alevans4 15y ago

Is there an older story on the internet than a software project overruns budget or doesn't get finished? I'd be more interested to see something like, software project costs $18M and here's where we went wrong, or software project costs $18M and here's why the client got their money's worth.

revorad 15y ago

Lesson learnt: charge more.

beambot 15y ago

If the website redesign results in 1% more direct conversions on their website (versus discount "Hotels.com" outfits), then $18M is probably a fairly decent "investment". Perhaps the developers were smart and made a value proposition rather than a pure hourly / salary proposition. Others on HN have talked about this distinction extensively, so try to avoid that little mental roadblock when considering the amount that they paid for the redesign.

funkah 15y ago

I think it looks great. And, it's in my interest for websites to cost as much as possible, so I have no problem with this. I don't understand that thing nerds do where they brag about how they could have done it in a weekend for $15 and some Mountain Dew. Well, I do understand it ("look how smart I am"), but it's still obnoxious.

coenhyde 15y ago

From what I can tell: - It's hosted on AWS - Their CDN is cloudfront - 2 elastic AWS loadbalancers - Apache webserver, probably with Tomcat - Java session id in cookie I assumed the site would have been either a Java or .Net site. I would have done it for $12 million ;)

luhsna 15y ago

If they spent 18M for this then they should probably fire their CTO or whoever approved this budget. IF

spydum 15y ago

Judging by the URL structure, this is built on Adobe (formerly Day)'s Communique 5.x platform. The CQ Platform gives you a ton of these graphical widgets and social interaction out of the box, though there is still plenty of development to write a full reservation system. It also handle mobile rendering, site templating, and multiple languages quite well. So while it sounds like people are seeing "a single website for $18m", I'd be willing to wager that was the cost for the entire content platform (CMS/Social/Mailings/Reservation system. So now they would have access to very advanced templating design, multi-lingual components. The amount of time it would take them to roll out multiple country and language sites would be dwarfed in comparison to any other platform. That $18m may be a big upfront costs, but might well pay for itself if they intend to use for other properties and across multiple regions/languages.

notjustanymike 15y ago
Definitely CQ - pretty impressive in that regard. Having worked with the platform, I can tell you -good- CQ5 developers are very expensive and hard to acquire. Conde Nast is learning this the hard way after they committed to converting all their properties over to CQ.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- spydum 15y ago
  True enough, but with a total cost of $18m, I'd guess they went full consultancy -- not done in house. Completely unrelated, does MJK mean anything to you?

usedtolurk 15y ago

The website itself is just be the tip of the iceberg - it would need to talk to multiple back-end systems. $18m wouldn't be unreasonable if the project required complex legacy integration and/or re-design of underlying infrastructure.

Lucadg 15y ago

I've been working on an online reservation CMS for more than 2 years now and this seems quite a good result. Maybe I would have done some things differently, such as location selection: the drop down is really long, the could have used an autosuggest. But everybody likes different things so I can only assume their usability tests suggested otherwise. The price is not really something we can judge: it could be either fair or too much. Who knows, this may be a very flexible framework they'll use for the next X years (good) or a hard to maintain website which will cost them even more to keep alive. We can't really judge. I wish I had 18 Millions to develop mine. Or maybe not, I'm happy with scarce resources, so little goes wasted.

ricardobeat 15y ago

So? It's a pack of ~90 sites + the main one, content management systems that will probably be used by hundreds, photography.. the cost is not surprising at all. They could do a better job of graceful degradation for javascript disabled without much effort, but I wouldn't blame them - everyone here seems to support the opposing mindset too.

md224 15y ago

Anyone else check the source and notice they're importing jQuery twice?

sirbrad 15y ago

The site is awesome. The UX is spot on! I think people have seen the price tag and expected something unimaginable. Not quite sure why they chose to use an Adobe application for the cms side of things.

pragmatic 15y ago

Is it just me or is the text at the bottom of each picture (with the location, temp, etc) unreadable in at least half the locations? The white on white is a bad idea. This must be a "marketing" driven site where "good ideas" trump usability. I'm sure they got an award or three for this cutting edge design.

justin_vanw 15y ago

I bet this site (Wynn Las Vegas) costs $18m per year in lost opportunities, because it's an unusable mess. http://wynnlasvegas.com/ http://wynnlasvegas.com/ It's slow, often times out, randomly doesn't work. The four seasons may have over paid for their site, but it's incredibly nice.

mustardhamsters 15y ago
I think for $18m they're probably making significantly more than that back. That really is a damned fine website, and you can tell that every piece of it has been double checked and agonized over with the client.