Alistar Frater

Volunteers do it better!

By The Basa ⋅ February 16, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

It seems that websites run by volunteers on a shoestring do the stuff a lot better than Council websites which have had more than one million pounds spent on them and are run by full-time Council staff.

myEdinburgh.org is the website that was set up by the Council to be everything to everyone and the site that would capture the citizens of the City of Edinburgh in a nice electronic way.  The site was at one time used by lot of council staff and indeed elected members as well as their email box until EdinburghSucks.com pointed out that the council staff and seconded personnel involved were reading the elected members mail and emails had to be sent out from the council to inform everyone to stop using myEdinburgh for their mail because it was NOT SECURE.

Well us in EdSucks towers have been informed to go over to Alexa and see just how well myEdinburgh has been doing compared with our goodselves:

Traffic Rank for myedinburgh.org:
3 mos. Avg.      3 mos. Change
 3,094,931         down 1,372,801

Reach per million users:
3 mos. Avg.       3 mos. Change
      0.1                  down 60%

For confirmation click here

Traffic Rank for EdinburghSucks.com:
3 mos. Avg.      3 mos. Change
   814,258             up 624,549

Reach per million users:
3 mos. Avg.       3 mos. Change
      0.85                  up 183%

For confirmation click here

What that means is that EdinburghSucks.com is currently the 814,258th most popular site on the internet whereas myEdinburgh is 3,094,931st on the web. 

myEdinburgh has had more than a million pounds of public money thrown at it and has been staffed at times by up to 20 people and EdinburghSucks has not had one penny of public money thrown at it, is staffed by about 9 volunteers in their own time and has actually, in 2006 alone, given out $9,876.73 to various Edinburgh Charities and good causes.

It seems when it comes to council IT projects, volunteers really do it better.

Hat-tip to DL

Random Posts you may have missed

• November 28, 2006 -- No Home Week (commenced Mon 27 Nov)
• February 26, 2006 -- Rosendale on the ropes
• July 10, 2006 -- Free service for Labour councillors
• June 15, 2006 -- Dick Dastardly has a hissy fit
• February 25, 2007 -- Double Standards flying high

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