Web Service Provider Bulleted List
Types of Services Offered
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[Table]
- This question attempts to gain an idea of what types of services Web
Service Providers (WSPs) are offering. Overall, European WSP provide more
services than their US counterparts. Nearly the same distribution of
services was observed as with the Third Survey. Over three-fourths of the
companies provide page design (78.1%), Internet/Web consulting (68.9%),
other types of services (59.8%), disk space (59.0%), Internet/Web
marketing advice (55.3%), CGI scripting (57.4%), traffic analysis of page
accesses (51.5%), and shell accounts (45.2%).
Factors Affecting Pricing
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- In order to better understand the pricing of services by Web Service Providers,
this question allowed respondents to choose from more than one option (thus the
totals will exceed 100%).
- The most common factor affecting pricing was the size of the project (77.5%),
followed by the complexity of the project (74.4%), duration of maintenance (60.5%),
other factors (59.9%), number of services used (59.4%) and the size of the customer's
company (25.7%). European WSPs used more factors in determining their pricing, which
is reflected in their preference for customized page design and
CGI scripting services.
Number of Customers
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[Table]
- Compared to the Third Survey, the number of customers per Web Service
Provider (WSP) has increased. Nearly one out of every three WSPs now has
over 100 customers (23.2% Third vs 31.0% Fourth). Additionally, fewer
report having no customers (9.3% Third vs 6.6 % Fourth).
- US providers are more likely to have a larger customer base (32.3% US vs
17.3% European with over 100 customers). This may indicate that the
European WSP industry is just beginning to take root.
Advertising Charges
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- Overall, most providers do not charge for advertising (57.5%). Note that
this statistic is only for Web Service Providers - not for commercial
Web sites. Nearly one out of every four Web Service Providers charges
under $100 (US dollars) per week for advertising (22.1%). Europeans typically
charge more for advertising - 21.9% Europe vs 8.1% US for advertising rates
of $51 - 100/week. Few charge more than $100/week for advertising (4.0%).
Pricing for Page Creation and Design
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- In the Third Survey Pre-Test, the choices for pricing for page design did not map
well to the pricing options offered by the providers who answered the survey.
Nearly half (47.24%) reported using other pricing models. The choices were
changed for the Fourth Survey.
- The most popular model was Custom Pricing (33.3%), with particular use of this
model by European WSPs (45.5% Europe vs 32.3% US), which seems to be due to their choice
of pricing factors. The next most popular models were
an Hourly basis (25.6%), per Page (19.3%), Other model (12.6%) and per Site (9.11).
Thus the redesign of the question flushed out the most popular models, although it
did not yield any additional insight into the custom pricing schemes being used.
How Long in Business
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- Over half of the providers have been in business over 10 months (56.7%).
Between the Third Survey in April and the Fourth Survey in October, 33.8.% of the
providers surveyed went online. The startup rate for Web Service Provider companies
varies between 8.1% (under 1 month) and 13.3% (2 to 4 months) for the preceding
10-month period.
Domain Registration Services
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[Table]
- The Web Service Providers surveyed were more likely to provide Domain
Name Service (DNS) Registration (53.8%) as to not provide DNS services (38.0%).
This is a 7% increase from the Third Survey Pre-Test of this questionnaire.
- European providers were more likely to provide DNS services than their
US counterparts (61.7% Europe vs 53.2% US).
Number of Employees
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- The majority of providers have between 1 and 10 employees (60.6%), with
20.9% having between 11 and 50, 3.8 having between 51 and 100, and 14.7%
having over 100 employees.
- European providers reported 29.1% had between 11 and 50 employees compared
to US providers with 19.4% in this range. This difference is proportions was
offset by US companies having 16.1% with over 100 employees where Europe posted
only 11.8% for the same range.
Pricing for CGI Scripting
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[Table]
-
As with page design, in the Third Survey Pre-Test the choices for pricing for
CGI scripting did not map well to the pricing options offered by the providers who
answered the survey. Over half (55.6%) reported using other pricing models.
The choices were changed for the Fourth Survey.
- Custom Scripting accounted for 40.8% of the responses, with 27.4% using a per Hour
model. The remaining choices were as follows: other model (17.0%), per Script (10.2%),
and per Site (4.7%). As with page design, European WSPs showed a preference for customized
pricing (51.8% Europe vs 40.3% US), which seems to be due to their choice
of pricing factors.
For more information or to submit comments:
send e-mail to www-survey@cc.gatech.edu.
GVU's WWW Surveying Team
Graphics, Visualization, & Usability Center
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280