[from Folio: The Rise of the Web CMS, July 29, 2010]

Everybody's got some form of content management system these days for multichannel publishing. ...What’s different in today’s economy is the rise of Web content management systems over enterprise solutions.

“In this economy we’re not seeing a whole lot of companies go out there and get a big enterprise content management system,” says Joseph Bachana, president and founder of Database Publishing Consultants Inc. (DPCI), a tech services provider. ...There are plenty of solutions available at different price points and with different features and functions. It all comes down to what you want to accomplish.

For a small publisher who wants to take article content, images and video and create an interactive experience for customers online, the open-source systems are fine, Bachana says. “If you’re a small publisher of a local magazine or affinity magazine there’s really nothing you’ll not get out of an open-source product today.”

Battles over open source preferences verge on holy war, and opinions on what’s best vary widely. If you want to get a simple blog up and running fast, WordPress has no equal, says Tom Wolf, senior Web developer for Summit Publishing. “It’s the ‘best’ blogging engine available and while it is technically a CMS and can be extended to do things other than blogging, you will see diminishing returns fairly quickly,” he says. “The more heavily you customize it (in terms of functionality; visually, it’s easy to make WordPress look however you want) the more you’ll find yourself ‘fighting’ with the underlying system.”

According to Wolf, Joomla! is in the middle of the three most popular open-source solutions, which also include WordPress and Drupal.  “Designed to be a general publishing CMS, Joomla! is still oriented toward a very specific set of workflows which pre-suppose a lot about the way your site does and doesn’t work,” Wolf says. “It also takes more work to set up and configure than WordPress (for a simple site), but that work pays off very quickly because you gain power and flexibility down the line.

Along with the increased power and flexility of Drupal comes a steep learning curve. To my mind, in most cases Joomla! is the best bet for a business and Wordpress is the best bet for authors and artists.

Here's another point of view on open source content management systems like Joomla, Wordpress and Drupal.

[from: http://www.intertechmedia.com/The-Pitfalls-of-a-DIY-CMS by Doug Kilzer. December 2009]

You wouldn't build your own version of Scott Studios

Our Audio Vault or Prophet.

It's too silly to think about.

Even if databases are free.  And hardware is cheap.  And even if you could do it perfectly technically, why?

Your're talking about putting the blood of your station into untested veins with hidden costs ...and downtime.

More importantly, it's what comes OUT of your studio automation system that defines your station.

Your music, your shows, your promotions and yes, your advertising.  The content and the packaging where you should spend your time, the submission and storage of that content isn't something to be re-invented.

It's the same with your online and mobile properties.

To build a web CMS from open source requires the definition hundreds of needs, work flow paths, permission structures, rent/buy hardware, firewalls, short codes, and staff to create and do them. Then the coding starts on your "free" project.

It's a lot of cost before a single content bell hits a P1's computer or before a contest whistle hits a listener's iphone.

Don't get bogged down in time and effort making/customizing a web CMS your listeners never see.  Work on content listeners can experience and that you can SELL.

There is no "pride of ownership" benefit in a CMS to your station.  And certainly no added revenue.

Use the best web CMS for radio. Leave the front end flash bells and jquery whistles to your in house developer to make from XML output, where it counts.

The writer sounds like, and I am sure he is, an expert in his field. His company offers web and software services to many of the major media companies in Canada and the US. And he has a point. I agree that skilled radio professionals should not be coding websites. But I don't agree that free and open source software cannot offer an effective, impressive and cost affordable solution to any radio station.From my experience, Joomla!, Wordpress and Drupal offers an out of the box solution 90% of the time. Any additional functionality or customization is easily to find, install or recruit. Tens upon thousands of developers are working on the Joomla! project and freely share their knowledge in any number of forurms. Most of the extensions are free. There are more than 4,500 to choose from.

If you cannot find a free extension that fills the bill, its easy to find a commercial extension that you can purchase one directly from its developer. If you purchase a commercial extension and have problems, they will help you get it working, many of them happily. Most of them take pride in their program  that carries their company name. They continue to perfect their programs over many years with the help of feedback from their customers.

Whatever solution you choose, something custom buillt or freely available, the most time consuming part of any web project remains. To quote his article again, you still need to "define hundreds of needs, work flow paths, permission structures." The default settings of any of three open source publishing systems can easily handle these three things. Firewalls, hardware and staff are still required for either system. What the open source or the propriety solutions don't handle -- and no one but the client can do -- is develop compelling content to post to the website. This is the most challenging and time consuming part of a project regardless of which system you use and it's something that only the client can handle well. They know their users and the kind of content that will attract them, or should.  

Sure, I could ask the client to take the time to send me their content so I can upload it to the site. Then, once I upload and format it, they have to check to see if it's where they want it to be and what they want it to look like. Often, once they see it placed on the website, there are changes. These changes require both their time and mine, in real time, to make. To my mind, this triple handing of the content is a useless waste of time and money when the client could upload their own content, once they know how. The client must focus on content. The content is the king of the website not the storage box it's displayed in. So it's best that the client learn how to update their own website. That's where free and open source CMS's shine. They are easy to learn how to work with, even for beginners.

That's why, like the writer, I think it's best that clients contract out the design and development of their website. Here's my approach to building a website for a client.

At the beginning of the project, I meet with the client for an hour or so. During this meeting, we develop a content plan and schedule for the site and determine its look and feel. At the end of the meeting, we book our two training sessions. While I am at my home office building their website, they are creating/locating content for each section. And, because we have developed a plan, they know exactly what content they need. They usually have it on hand or can assign a staff member to create it. Then, once the site is roughed in according to our site plan, I train them and/or their staff members, how to upload their own content to the site, including text, images, videos, audio files, photo galleries, etc. We confirm the date of our next training session, in case it changed from the original schedule. Typically the two training sessions are no more than two weeks apart.

Between the time of the first and second training session, I call them to see if they need any help. If they do, I help them over the phone. Then, I return to their office for the second two hour training session. By the end of the two weeks, they have figured out how the site is structured, posted content and run into the most common problems a Joomla! newbie runs into such as how to change the order of articles or move a module. After the second two hour session, they rarely need my help.

If you're interested in building and/or maintaining your own website, either with Wordpress or Joomla! I offer two options, and you like this approach, I suggest two options: register for the  "Master Your Website With Joomla! Workshop" to run on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 or the "Blogging for Business With Pleasure Workshop" to run on Wednesday, November 24, 2010, and learn to build and maintain it yourself.