A vast majority of the governments with whom we worked chose to develop their sites in-house and outsource the hosting. The decision to outsource hosting for one county was driven entirely by costs. It was much cheaper to pay an ISP $100 a month than spend $30,000 to buy a server and invest in the technical staff expertise.

For one city, the decision to outsource was even easier. Under a 10-year agreement, a local college hosted the site for free. The main cost to the city was a slower connection when classes were in session.

By contrast, participants said outsourcing site design and development can be very expensive. One city paid a contractor as much as $115 an hour for the changes it made while developing its Web site.

Because developing a Web site is such a creative and continuous process, the cost of those changes added up quickly.

The City of Oneonta partnered with Hartwick College, which agreed to host its site for 10 years.