Contensis continues its innovation in content management systems with the launch of the latest version of its market-leading web CMS. R7.1 is the very latest release of the Contensis Enterprise CMS and the first using its new release schedule that sees a new version every 4 months.
The End of the Anonymous Comment
Over the years, I have gone on record stating the importance in allowing users the ability to leave comments at this site anonymously. I have always recognized that there is a segment of the online community that likes to submit quality comments online, but they don't want to be required to leave an online trail that can be traced back to personal online accounts. Despite all the trouble I've had with the spammers and bots, the benefits of anonymous comments was always worth it to me in hopes of reading that one life changing comment provided by someone who preferred to stay in the shadows.
After six years of running CMS Report, I've decided too much has changed in the online world to continue allowing anonymous comments to continue here. During the past couple years, I've noticed the quality of conversation taking place at this site and other sites drop significantly. In part, I think the drop in quality comments is due to social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ now providing additional avenues for readers and writers to have their opinions be made known. I also think social media has allowed people to become so comfortable with themselves having an online presence that they no longer are comfortable being in conversations with anonymous people. If my last few months with Google+ has taught me anything, it is that people want to have conversation only when everyone in the room has been identified.
Packt uses Twitter to reach out to new authors
Packt publishing is reaching out to potential authors through Twitter. The @packtauthors account features the latest book ideas, topic areas, author interviews, reviews, and anything else Packt thinks authors and future authors will want to see.
Packt launched a new twitter account to tweet about new writing opportunities arising at Packt. Developers and technical people interested in writing technical books are invited to follow @packtauthors.
Most technical publishers expect authors to deliver detailed book proposals, with very little guidance on the sort of proposals likely to be accepted. Packt is turning this on its head by openly proclaiming the sort of topics and titles they’re most interested in right now, and inviting interested authors to get in touch with a simple email.
“We are planning to publish more than 200 books this year and will be inviting authors to write them. We’ll tweet about specific book ideas that need authors, topic areas that we’re looking into, interesting links, and anything else we think authors and future authors will want to see,” said David Barnes, Author Relationship Manager at Packt Publishing. “Follow @packtauthors so you can be the first to discover our latest writing opportunities.”
CMS Report's Ten Additional Stories for 2009
A couple days ago, I posted CMS Report's Top Ten Stories of 2009. The articles listed were ranked by popularity based by how many times viewed and the rate that they were viewed through the year. Popular stories do not always signify well written articles or are always an indication of personal favorites. Each year, I write a number of content management or IT related articles that I love but for various reasons you the people didn't have interest in reading and sharing.
Below are some of my favorite articles written in 2009 that were not a part of the previously posted Top Ten list. If I had a Top 20 Stories list the articles in both of these listings would be included.
- Looking forward to Microsoft's Windows 7
- Reviewing Barrie North's Joomla! 1.5 book and video
- The problem is bigger than SharePoint
- Testing the water with Acquia Search for Drupal
- Shortcomings of Enterprise Wiki Deployments
- Two CMS Worlds on Twitter
- Charging for online news doomed to fail
- Theme development and the GPL
- Judging Five Overall Best Content Management Systems
- Quoting IT: Addison Berry
Follow Less Twitter Tip
TwitTip: "As much as many of us like to think that we’re highly organized and efficient when it comes to our use of Twitter, there is in fact a lot we can do to make our lives easier.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve adopted some fairly radical measures to streamline and improve my use of Twitter, which I’ll share with you here."
Survey says content is still king
As most site owners do, I rely on content to sell my site on the Internet. I fully recognize the emerging trends of social or community sites such as FaceBook and Twitter attracting large audiences on the Internet. While I have been dabbling with how I can benefit by merging conent and social media into a website, CMS Report remains mainly as a content site. If suddenly people lost interest in using the Internet to retrieve content then sites like mine would no longer have a reason to exist.
With the continued growth in social media sites is there a future for content sites and content management systems? As an article on CNET by Lance Whitney points out, apparently, the answer remains a resounding "yes".
The Internet offers everything from searching to shopping to social networking, but Net users still spend most of their time on plain old content sites, according to a survey from the Online Publishers Association.
In the latest installment from its monthly Internet Activity Index, the OPA reported that Internet users are now spending 42 percent of their time online using content sites, more than any other category. That figure represents a 24 percent jump from 2003 when Net users spent 34 percent of their time on content sites.
Content sites include those that offer news, information, and entertainment, such as NYTimes.com, ESPN.com, MapQuest.com, and Edmunds.com.
This is good news for those of us that run mainly content websites. I am still fascinated by the use of social media for moving information to a wider audience and I will continue to experiment in that direction. But in my heart I know that my site can't truly compete as a social site with the very popular community sites that already exist today. I do though have unique content to offer through articles and blog postings that can't be found elsewhere on the Internet. It's good to know that with content still king there is a reason why sites like mine still have a future on the Internet.
Quoting IT: Addison Berry
There are some people blessed with the rare skill of saying something of value under 140 characters or less. One of those people is Addison Berry. Addi is an active contributor to the Drupal open source project, Lullabot team member, and former civil servant . Two tweets from Twitter by Addison Berry that made me smile when I first read them can be found below.
"I find the kinder and gentler I am to myself, the kinder and gentler I am to others."
-Addison Berry, @add1sun, Twitter, 3:46 PM Apr 24th 2009
"Being a jack of all trades, master of none, gets old after a while. Just kind of means I can do lots of things half-ass."
-Addison Berry, @add1sun, Twitter, 9:47 AM Jul 29th 2009
Create your own private Twitter site using WordPress
Cats Who Code: "While Twitter is great, it may not be the best choice if you're looking for a private network, for example for sharing work tips with colleagues, or notice your familly about what's up.
As I was searching for an easy and quick way to create a private microblogging website...I decided that WordPress should do that job, and do it good as always."
Forty plus One Twitter CMS Gurus
We made it! We made Jon Marks' updated Follow Forty Twitter CMS Gurus list.
So, you want to follow the CMS world on Twitter. How about the ability to follow the creme de la creme of the CMS Twitterati in a couple of clicks. Well, my friend, you’ve struck gold. [UPDATE: Even more gold than promised. The list is growing. More than 40]
Better yet, if you read the comments, we were added after some controversy. By the way, Jon has correctly included himself in the list.
@McBoof – Compiler of useless info and lists.
The Fine Art Of Balancing Your Twitter Conversations
TwiTip: "Now, before you all go off and close your browsers, saying you’ve read it all before, consider the following. All the most popular people on Twitter (excluding celebrities who largely get by due to their fame) are very effective at balancing these five categories to create an interesting and engaging conversation with their followers. They’re not all about retweets or replies and they don’t just talk about their personal life all the time."
WhiteHouse 2.0
There has been a huge transformation this year at WhiteHouse.gov. Blogs, RSS feeds, and connections to social networking sites are being fully utilized at the President's website. Those of us that have worked in information technology positions for the federal government have experienced first hand just how slow bureaucracies can be in taking advantage of newer technologies. From my perspective, it is almost surreal to see references to Web 2.0 from a website for an office that once didn't allow the President of the United States to send emails or even use a smart phone.
Let's hope the President's views on content management and social publishing trickles down to the rest of the Executive branch.
In the President’s last Weekly Address, he called on government to "recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking." He added that "we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative," and pledged to "reach beyond the halls of government" to engage the public. Today the White House is taking steps to expand how the Administration is communicating with the public, including the latest information and guidance about the H1N1 virus. In addition to WhiteHouse.gov, you can now find us in a number of other spots on the web:
The WhiteHouse blog (RSS) will power a lot of the content in these networks, but we’re looking forward to hearing from our fans, friends and followers. Don’t forget these sites as well:
Technology has profoundly impacted how – and where – we all consume information and communicate with one another. WhiteHouse.gov is an important part of the Administration’s effort to use the internet to reach the public quickly and effectively – but it isn’t the only place.
Drupal Voices: Rob Loach on Open Microblogging
One of the more interesting concepts, I think, is the many ideas for how to incorporate microblogging (think Twitter) into your content management system. Drupal Voices via Lullabot interviews Rob Loach and briefly talks to him about his Distributed Micro-Blogging proposal which received a grant from the Knight Foundation. The audio recording is only two mintues long but there is enough there to get you started thinking how microblogging may eventually play a role in the larger world of content management.
Click Here to go to the Lullabot page with the audio file.
What Twitter Application is Right For You?
TwiTip: "When I was new to twitter, I had no idea what I was doing — as is the case for most people when they first sign up. After I started following a few people I noticed all the different applications their Tweets were coming from: Twhirl, TweetDeck, Twittelator, Twitterific, PowerTwitter, TwitterFon, the list goes on. How do you sort through all of them and find the right application to use? Is any one of them better than the others? After trying nearly everything, I have a few ideas as to how to find the right Twitter app to suit your needs."
Twitter: The Anti-Enterprise Social Network
Internet Evolution: "It still doesn't follow that Twitter is suited to enterprise communication. Sales, marketing, interpartner banter, yes. Internal communications, no. If anything, Twitter is anti-enterprise, given its penchant for consuming gobs of otherwise productive time."
Twitter Fever in Sioux Falls
My local newspaper, the Argus Leader, contains an article about Twitter fever finally arriving in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The start of the article is interesting to read.
Following blogs online takes too much time. So Mike Vetter, 24, uses Twitter to keep up with friends and follow the short posts or "tweets" by people in his business.
"Twitter is called microblogging - small blogs - only up to 140 characters at a time," says Vetter, CEO of DataSync, a Sioux Falls software company. "If I were to follow 50 people blogging, I would be reading all day long. This way I can get the point, boiled down. It's blogging for lazy people."
Isn't that ironic? When blogging first became popular some of the criticisms bloggers heard was that blogs were too short and not polished enough. The thought was that blog posts would never hold the same attention by readers compared to real articles and stories written elsewhere. Now we forward forward to the present and we find that blogs contain too many words which is what spurring the Twitter movement. The length of a tweet is limited by 140 characters (roughly about the same as a text message in a cell phone).
Following this line of thought, I'm now convinced that by the time my five year old son becomes a teenager he'll call Twitter too inefficient. Instead his generation and their even shorter attention span will require you to send messages at 7 characters or less. What would we call this new service, Twit?
After three decades of embracing technology, I think I finally arrived between the old way and the new ways of doing things. My case in point, I found this article in the print version of my Sunday newspaper. At the same time, I'm ready to read what you think of the article via my Twitter account.
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