Advantages and Drawbacks of Using WordPress as Your CMS

WordPress as a content management system is often debated among CMS enthusiasts due to it being known so much more as a fantastic blogging platform. However, with the right plug-ins, WordPress can be setup also as a great CMS too. This list is dedicated to those that love to make such lists that weigh the pros and cons of a particular CMS.

There are some definite advantages as well as drawbacks in using WordPress as a CMS platform.  This list is dedicated to those that love to make such lists that weigh the pros and cons of a particular CMS.

WordCampTV: Lucy Beer on Treat Your Blog Like A Business

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Submitted by Bryan on

I'm posting this video for the most obvious reason. Anyone with the last name of Beer deserves an opportunity to be highlighted on my blog. All kidding aside, we need more people like Lucy Beer in the world reminding us blogging is a business and you can't move your blog forward with a strategy. The only thing I would have changed in her talk is to focus less on advertisement and more on content.

Source: WordPress.TV

For the novice: 7 Content Management Systems

A website content management system (CMS) is software used to effectively manage the content of your website. A CMS helps website administrator to ‘upload’, ‘edit’ and ‘add’ content without any knowledge of web programming. Content management systems offers a range of benefits to website administrator and due to this they are highly popular among web community.

There are many CMSs on the market but you need to select the one based on your needs. If you are going to use a CMS for the first time, we recommend you choose a user-friendly CMS that does not add any kind of complexity on your part.

What follows is a list of what I believe to be the seven best web content management systems for novices:

WordPress

If you are a small business or a blogger, WordPress is an ideal choice for you. WordPress CMS software is developed by hundreds of community members and it includes a number of themes and plug-ins for appealing and effective website design.

Joomla

Joomla CMS is widely used in web applications as well as website development. Due to its user-friendliness and flexibility, it is amongst the most popular CMS on the market today. Joomla CMS is open source software thus available for free download to all.

Drupal

Drupal is open source website CMS software and It is used to create a wide verities of sites from a small scale personal blogging websites to large-scale community websites.

WebmasterFormat: Joomla & WordPress Together

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To my mind being able to have a WordPress blog for a Joomla website is the perfect union. WordPress, considered to be the best blogging platform and Joomla, one of the most powerful Content Management Systems working hand in hand together on the same site would be a marriage made in heaven.

This guide shows you exactly how I did it without any coding:  How to Create a WordPress Blog for Joomla Website

Open Source CMS, Market Share Report, and White Elephants

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Last weekend, digital agency water&stone, released their 2011 Open Source CMS Market Share Report. I consider this report one of the few non-bias and detailed surveys that come across my desk each year. The report isn't perfect, but the report does help give a good snapshot on the state of who's who in the world of open source content management systems.

You are most definitely going to want to take a look at the details in the report. The findings in this year’s report were based on a survey of more than 2,500 CMS users and additional research into a wide variety of measures of market share and brand strength. I'm still combing through the survey and taking note of the interesting individual nuggets of information that can be found in the results of the survey.

WaterandStone's 2011 Open Source CMS Markert Share ReportNot surprisingly, the report confirms the ranking position of open source's three most dominate Web content management systems in the market. The press release itself summarizes the results this way:

PHP-based systems WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal continue to dominate the web content management space. But, while the Big Three remain unchanged from last year, the Report concludes that WordPress retains a clear lead in the face of decreasing competition from Joomla!.

The decreasing competition from Joomla! can be seen most noticeably in the decrease of installations reported by the survey respondents in 2011 compared to 2010. The survey does note that this dramatic drop is likely due to the Joomla! community aggressively promoting the survey last year. This year, the promotion efforts were not coordinated and less influential. I only point this out because this is an example of where the report isn't "perfect" via inconsistencies in the yearly survey sample introducing  a margin of error in the trend comparisons. 

Quoting IT: Mullenweg on the Power of Developers

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"If you’re a developer you’re already five steps ahead of everyone else. Scripting is the new literacy, and the ability to learn and execute on your ideas without relying on anybody else is going to be invaluable as you iterate and experiment on building something."

-Matt Mullenweg, The future of WordPress: Q&A with founder Matt Mullenweg, memeburn.com, July 8, 2011.

WordPress 3.2: Features and Video

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This week, WordPress 3.2 became available to the public. According to Matt Mullenweg, "the focus for this release was making WordPress faster and lighter". While the new version of WordPress doesn't bring any revolutionary changes to blogging, it does move this CMS forward with confidence and style.

New features and changes in WordPress 3.2 include:

  • A refreshed dashboard design that tightens the typography, design, and code behind the admin.
  • The introduction of a HTML 5 theme,Twenty Eleven, that modern browser users will appreciate.
  • A "just write" distraction-free writing or "zen mode" user interface.
  • Minimum PHP version is now 5.2.4. PHP 4 is no longer supported.
  • Minimum MySQL database version is now 5.0.
  • Internet Explorer (IE6) and other outdated browsers are no longer supported.

As has been customary ever since I remember, WordPress 3.2 is also given the code name of one of the Jazz artists greats, this time "Gershwin". Enjoy the video, found below the fold, introducing WordPress 3.2.

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