This is a fantastic article found on ZDNet UK not only about open source content management systems but the issues that traditional publishers are now facing in either competing or adopting with today's Web CMS. The article is written by Mike Barrett and is titled, "CMS evolution, publishing revolution?". The author writes:
Mainstream content management systems are only now starting to provide similar flexibility for publishers. Open source products such as Drupal and Joomla now offer a viable way for smaller businesses to get on line effectively. Like the blogging platforms [Wordpress and Blogger] they introduce the opportunity to create multiple sites, cost effectively, by re-using functionality, content and platforms. But how many publishers are actually taking advantage of this? Often, even where publishers have multiple sites, many are still designed and built in isolation from their stablemates as businesses fail to understand the benefits of one platform.Why don't the traditional media just migrate over to open source CMS? Don't forget that when many of the publishers first put their CMS online several years ago...propriety was still king.
The problem for all those publishers (large and small) that built their own systems is that they now have such a huge “cost of exit” that it's almost impossible to migrate to this model. The small publishers probably don’t even have access to their original developers (one story I heard recently was of a developer that emigrated to New Zealand to be a car mechanic!).Mr. Barrett eventually concludes that "the CMS evolution continues but the real on-line publishing revolution hasn’t even started yet…". There are few articles that I have read online that are as candid as this post regarding where their organization has been with CMS (propriety and in-house) and where they are going (open source). I consider this the best article I've read this year so please don't miss your opportunity to read the article yourself.
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Why not wordpress.org?
I wonder why the article refers to wordpress.com and not wordpress.org? It seems to me that the actual software and not the service is more of a threat to publishers.
Wordpress and Blogger
I was using the blogging platforms as examples of how it is now possible (with XML/CSS/XSL etc.) to abstract the presentation, functionality, categorisation and content and the opportunities that presents publishers. This is a fundamental architectural shift to how the legacy CMS were built 3/5/6 years ago and, I think is the most difficult challenge for the publishers.
I don't really see the Wordpress software being a major threat to mainstream publishers with multiple editorial staff, sites and content types, it's very good at what it does but it's not an enterprise strength content management system.
Thanks for the review
Just to clarify a couple of things, whilst the article was posted on ZDNet, I'm a guest blogger there so this reflects my views as opposed to CNET's direction. I was very fortunate at CNET to spend the major part of last year overseeing the complete re-building of the proprietary CMS to integrate user generated content and social networking functionality and the ZDNet site is the result of that work. The timing was critical as the business was (and still is) growing at 30-40% a year and, if the process were to be starting now, it probably wouldn't be feasible. It was a massive, 12 month project to re-architect the CMS which most publishers wouldn't be able to undertake and puts them in a great position in comparison with their big publisher competitors.
What's been fascinating since leaving to set up my consultancy business is that I imagined my target market to be large on-line publishers. What I've found though is that, on the whole, while I can provide advice and recommendations, most of them are constrained by their legacy systems.
Even with all the work I did at CNET they still don't have the same opportunities as a new entrant who can take their pick of any number of CMS platforms that have been built over the last 2 years specifically to take advantage of the new technologies and architectures. The most interesting work that I'm now doing is with businesses that have no content management legacy and can take advantage of this.
Secondly, whilst I've used the open source CMS as great examples of this, there are also some excellent mid-range CMS products available from vendors. The Visit Wales example in the article actually uses a product called Amaxus from Box UK. What the article tries to explore is the potential for this new breed of CMS, deployed from scratch regardless of who wrote it and the problems of those with legacy solutions. I don't want to wade into the Open Source vs paid for debate! Well, not today anyway:)
Commenting on comments
Mike B. thanks for stopping and commenting about my commenting of your story. Now that I have a URL to your blog I imagine I'll be taking a look at your writings more often.
I understand what you mean about the dilemma of legacy systems and your reminder of the "exit costs". For my place of work we have a number of legacy software applications. I'm finding that moving people off the legacy software is about more then just introducing new software to the office. After awhile, individuals and organizational behaviors are shaped by the habitual use of that legacy software that it's hard to get others motivated to move to the newer software. While many of the applications can now be server based and delivered via Web 2.0 applications, a number of people just won't let those old Win 98 Visual Basic applications die.
Also, I shouldn't have implied that you were advocating only open source CMS. I too have a respect for those companies that are doing innovative things with their own CMS. For example, I'm pretty sure the next time I setup a commerce site for someone I'll be looking at the commercial vendors. I'm still open to using open source for ecommerce sites, but don't want to limit my options to only open source.
You mentioned that you thought your target market would be "large on-line publishers". I haven't dedicated much time to consultancy as a personal business, but I'm starting to think the demand for consulting is greater with the small to medium size businesses. Of course, the problem is that those small businesses are less likely to pay for the consulting. Either way, good luck in your business and feel free to stop here anytime.
article
Thank You for another very interesting article. It's really good written and I fully agree with You on main issue, btw. I must say that I really enjoyed reading all of Your posts. It’s interesting to read ideas, and observations from someone else’s point of view… it makes you think more. So please try to keep up the great work all the time. Greetings