Content Management Systems (CMS)

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by S Uthaman on March 12, 2009 at 9:16pm

We are currently using Vignette for the online publishing of our newspapers and other new media solutions and we need to decide on whether to upgrade or replace this CMS. We would like to know what the publishers that I listed in my earlier email are using and we would also like to contact them to get some insider feedback.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Cheryl Naughton on June 22, 2010 at 10:27am

What do you think about Joomla as a CMS solution?

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mark Loeffler on June 22, 2010 at 12:33pm

Depending on your needs, Joomla is a good choice. Backend is user friendly and Joomla has an active community which means you should not have trouble finding help if you need it.

Mark Loeffler
Infoswell Media

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Alisa Cromer on July 2, 2009 at 3:18pm

You might want to look at the ones on newmediahub.com in the directory. In addition to MaTchbin, there is Zope which is more customizeable, and townnews.com which is a terrible name, but a good solution, and nStein, Oleg's company, which is a fantastic cms. Are you a local media? Matchbin's directory as a retailer and you will see that a. you have to be geo-based ie has to have mapping and b. there are some weird spin time issues.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Marah Walsh on June 19, 2008 at 1:59pm

I am part of a small publishing company. One print title (circ 17,800) including six supporting pubs which mail to the same circ base. We have a decent online media showing for our size.
Our CMS is good, but trying. We use a system that does not enable us to have the back end power of an ftp like we were used to, but makes other areas easier.

It is microsoft based and "every" minute of time spent with developers is billable. UGH. I'd like to find someone to work with it, and us who is fair and innovative.

Our CMS staff is a few of us who have time "here and there" to maintain it. No dedicated staff.

That is my struggle.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by OlegR on June 19, 2008 at 2:24pm

The problem with MS based CMS-es is just like you said - its proprietory and expensive to maintain.
As a small publication you should look at open source CMSes like Drupal, Joomla or Plone. These ones are not scalable enough if you go high volume traffic, they are not flexible enough to host more than 5-10 channels (websites), and they do not do text-mining, UGC monetization, relevant content linking etc.
They are pretty good with taxonomies though (especially Drupal).

The beauty of them is that they are free and there is a large development community around them.
The bad side is that they are open source, not secure enough, and they are definitely not made for enterprise level use.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Marah Walsh on June 19, 2008 at 3:01pm

Thanks. I need a consultant that can work with MS based CMS - who is fair!

We'll see if one is out there.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Joani Reisen on July 17, 2008 at 4:42pm

Hi Marah,
After a very long nightmare with developers i have finally found a great company who has been able to accomplish things no one else has been able to. here is his email address Brent Vollrath [brent@microendeavors.com]
unfortunately it is the wild wild west out there as far as getting an honest, fair software development company. make sure you get source code dumps on a regular basis. good luck

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Phil James on July 2, 2009 at 10:33pm

Hi, I would strongly recommend an innovative group in Providence called Creative Circle. They have an excellent CMS and work with both small and large publishers. They also have directory, classified and other products. Check out this site, which has minimal staff and resources but looks great (www.catholicherald.com) or this one for a larger paper (www.bangordailynews.com) which was just rated one of the top web sites by its users. We like them better because of their outlook, flat rate pricing and great design.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Phil James on September 18, 2009 at 3:33am

Good grief. You are much better off outsourcing your web site to people who know what they are doing. We ditched our in-house system for a vendor we liked and saved lots of time and money. One problem we had with open source tools was the WE had to keep up with it -- upgrades and changes -- and it just wasn't a good use of resources.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mark Loeffler on June 19, 2008 at 2:42pm

Here are just a few companies that are using open source CMS's:

Univeral Music, Nike, FedEx, Fast Company, AOL, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, MacWorld, Warner Brothers, Fox, Discovery Channel....the list goes on and on!

Here are a few artists sites as well (high traffic web sites):
Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, Pink, R.E.M., Tori Amos

The fact is open source CMS's are a real alternative to higher priced proprietary systems. I know as we scrapped our own proprietary CMS a few years ago in favor of open source. The future of open source CMS's is very bright.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by OlegR on June 19, 2008 at 3:02pm

The difference is that those companies are using open source to host static company sites.
Open Source CMSes do not let you monetize your content to the same extent as enterprise ones.
They have no text mining, no other monetization systems installed.

Also - having an open source CMS implies you have to have a large development and support staff, while if you use an enterprise CMS - you can rely on 24/7 support and maintenance.

Also - Discovery Channel is standardized on Interwoven TeamSite which is not an open source CMS.
Yahoo has in-house developed proprietory system.
Warner Brothers has numerous divisions with their own CMSes, majority of which are enterprise-level.
Fox also has several, but their main properties are running on enterprise CMSes.
AOL has in-house developed not-open source CMS system for their media properties.
MacWorld is owned by International Data Group (IDG) and they are using Interwoven Teamsite (not sure about this one - have not spoken to them for quite some time).

So, 90% of all media-centric large corporations either do it on their own or rely on specialized companies.
They might have some of their online properties on open-source systems as a test, but non of them rely their main revenue streams on open source systems

▶ Reply to This

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• …
• 6
• Next ›
• Page