[Air-L] Web agencies : do they even exist ?

[Sam Ladner]

Hi Eric,

Yes there are many web agencies. You may wish to try looking up the
interactive agencies' top list, as reported by AdWeek:

http://www.adweek.com/aw/industry_reports/interactive/interactive_50.jsp

Or you may wish to look at Forrester Research's "top web agencies." Theirs
is for-profit research so you must access it through a subscription or a
library.

I completed my PhD dissertation on these agencies and their use of time.
Specifically I examined how the use of time sheets transforms the labour
process into one of "double commodification," or commodification of labour
power that is sold not once, but twice (once to the employer and once again
to the client). I have an industry-focused blog online, but my
soon-to-be-defended dissertation is not yet up. The blog may help you
understand some of my major findings. It is a qualitative study, but the
blog has the results of a non-probability survey that I also conducted.

http://www.agencytime.blogspot.com

On Feb 6, 2008 10:40 AM, Donna Bulford <bulford at mac.com> wrote:

> HI Eric,
>
> Yes there are web agencies and lots of them ...it depends on if you mean
> an agency that specializes in reporting and ad serving like Digitas or an
> agency that actually in the old school sense of the world specializes in
> online creative like creating optimized or high yielding widgets or websites
> such as Piazza Advertising. I work with both kinds of agencies every day.
> There is not a directory like there is for production companies but the
> A great directory like resource to look up these types of business is the
> The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences web site that you can
> connect to through the Webbys website.
> I am not really familiar with that many studies on web agencies but Borell
> and Associates, a research firm did a great study on Search Advertising
> Companies a few years back and included a revenue study.
>
> -db
>
>
> On Wednesday, February 06, 2008, at 08:27AM, "Eric Bernard" <
> eric-listes at ak-project.com> wrote:
> >Dear all,
> >Between the raw content and the network - both heavily studied - a
> website
> >needs to be "created", by something like a web agency (which can be a
> single
> >individual, an internal department, a geek friend... whoever).
> >Anyway, I discover recently that - at least in the French speaking
> documents
> >- there are really few (that is... none that I know about) information
> about
> >the web agencies : what they are, how many and where they are, what they
> do,
> >how they evolve... My point is not to have a commercial point of view but
> >more a sociological, geographical or economical one, on this type of
> >stakeholders of the net development.
> >Concretely, I'm in West Africa. It's (almost) easy to know how many web
> >users are around, how many telecenters and where they are, what is the
> >bandwith, the number of domain names by country etc. but there is nothing
> >written about web agencies (or webmasters).
> >
> >So does any of you know studies about web agencies (wherever in the
> world,
> >I'm more interested in the methodology) ?
> >
> >Thank you by advance
> >
> >Eric Bernard, Ph.D,
> >AK-Dev Director
> >
> >AK-Project
> >Rue 17 X 30 Sicap Karack
> >BP 32339 Dakar Ponty - Senegal
> >Tel : (221) 33 824 38 02
> >www.ak-dev.net
> >
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-- 
~~~~~
Sam Ladner, PhD
Sociologist
Toronto