Take a new site for example
Its just text and pictures on a web page. The new york times re-invented a database out of kafka to power theirs (mind bogglingly stupid)
The Guardian re-wrote their CMS at least 4 times, at a cost of well over 50 million, if not more. Thats before they got to re-doing the layout.
The FT spent 6(!) years rebuilding their entire stack, (150 tech staff for 6 years. a good percentage contractors. > £70million)
All of it is just fucking text on a fucking web page. All that effort to add fancy gizmos for hosting, optimising for framework x, which has a half life of 6 months, adding animation to drop downs. Just a spectacular waste. They are still re-platforming every 9 months, each of the 5 major teams.
All of that money could have been put into content, advertising for customers, collaborations & events.
Most news sites can get away with a static, highly cached system (I mean look at the Daily mail, the page is slow, static and looks like shit, yet its the biggest new paper site online)
So form a business perceptive, its spaffing money up the wall for no real gain.
Its just text and pictures on a web page. The new york times re-invented a database out of kafka to power theirs (mind bogglingly stupid)
The Guardian re-wrote their CMS at least 4 times, at a cost of well over 50 million, if not more. Thats before they got to re-doing the layout.
The FT spent 6(!) years rebuilding their entire stack, (150 tech staff for 6 years. a good percentage contractors. > £70million)
All of it is just fucking text on a fucking web page. All that effort to add fancy gizmos for hosting, optimising for framework x, which has a half life of 6 months, adding animation to drop downs. Just a spectacular waste. They are still re-platforming every 9 months, each of the 5 major teams.
All of that money could have been put into content, advertising for customers, collaborations & events.
Most news sites can get away with a static, highly cached system (I mean look at the Daily mail, the page is slow, static and looks like shit, yet its the biggest new paper site online)
So form a business perceptive, its spaffing money up the wall for no real gain.