Challenges of Web Products vs. Web-Only Products

By Eric Johnson, World Bank Institute (WBI); Sherine Ghoneim, Economic Research Foundation (ERF); Margaret Nyrambura Ndung'u, EcoNews Africa; Sangeeta Gupta, The Energy and Resources Institute (formerly the Tata Energy Research Institute) (TERI)
May 2001

Web products

Web products – This is an outcome or an element of another project. It could be a project Web site or a conference Web site or an electronic version of a print publication.

Since these are components/outputs of projects, they are financed from the overall project funding. It is fairly easy to get funding for these as they are part of bigger projects and donors don't mind giving a few extra funds to have the output of the project on the Web. However Web managers need to advocate the importance of building these components as part of the overall project funding and not have these as afterthoughts. The funding for such components could also take care of the regular Web maintenance work hence CSOs could think of having a policy of including Web components for all their big projects.

It is important to have a very clear idea of the scope, extent and format of these products at the time of budgeting otherwise you could end up doing lot more than you had planned and budgeted for.

In the case of a project Web site, you need to know the following before budgeting:

• format of the outputs/publications. If it's a PDF version of the print output, then it does not entail much work, but if it is to be converted to HTML, then you have to budget for the time required to do the conversion.
• requirement of sections like Links, Bibliography and Contacts to add value to the Web site; and
• frequency of updates.

In case of a conference Web site, would it be just a Web version of the conference brochure or would you have interactive elements like CVs of speakers, papers to be presented, registration forms and agendas which need to be changed from time to time.

Web-only products

Web-only product – This is developed only for the Web and has no other version. It could be a database of technologies, a portal or a thematic Web site.

• difficult to sell the idea and very few donors fund such products;
• extremely difficult to maintain and sustain such products after initial funding is over
• require sound revenue models;
• initial in-house funding – since it is difficult to sell these products to donors, it may help to develop initially with in-house funding and then go to a funding agency with that product for further development; and
• funding for the development of the product and then making it self-sustaining by adopting one of the revenue models.