...I can say that we all waited ages for the site to relaunch, when it finally did we are shocked.

• Poor accessibility, basically the same content under a different template. It took them 2 months to get the "Pay your Council Tax online" feature working again.
• There was no consultation with the target audience (Birmingham City Council covers approximately 1.2 million people).
• All the features we were expected such as here's my postcode...
• • ...where's my nearest school/doctor"
  • ...who's my Member of Parliament
  • ...when do my bins (trash cans for those across the pond) get collected.
• ...were nowhere to be seen despite being common on many other council websites.

So bad is the situation, some local web developers have set up their own community built site:
http://www.bccdiy.com/
And while still in it's early days (design could be improved), it has the useful features and shows events that are taking place in what is a vibrant and modern city.

We use petrol-based cars by habit, but in the UK when it last peaked at £1.20 it was noticable how people were driving less. If you applied eBay's price hikes to the petrol industry I believe you would see increasing demand for LPG/electric alternatives (even public transport if they can put up with the crowding).

A loyal customer base today is no guarantee for a loyal customer base tomorrow. They must remember to innovate well, you can go too far in the wrong direction: Delorean got it wrong with the car!