Drupal: Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS)
March 25, 2008
Kelowna, BC

Born Free, Stay Free: Open Source Content Management Systems

Remember content management systems (aka CMS)? It’s that genius software that lets non-techies keep their Web site content current without needing a Webmaster (who—typically—is not answering his phone anyway).

To recap, a basic CMS lets you edit text on your Web pages and instantly publish it to the Web. More powerful systems let you do more—much more—at your whim.

CMS sites are perfect for building an online community—newly added content from you and your users keep the site fresh and active, inviting regular return visits.
 
Retaining control over what gets published, when, and how means all these good things:

• Faster delivery to market: fresh content (e.g. news, products, pricing, etc.) published directly to the Web.
• Agility: quicker response to changing or emerging markets and conditions.
• Tighter security: controlled access and permissions for creation, editing, approval and publishing.
• Better brand management: limited risk of misrepresenting your company’s face.
• Attractiveness: current, contextualized info draws in visitors like nothing else (except free iPods).
• Freedom: banish the once all–powerful Webmaster.
• Cost savings: stop outsourcing content production and conversion.
• Flexibility to grow. Read on!

Considering that the costs of a CMS range from nada to several G’s, unsurprisingly not all CMSs are created (or implemented) equally. Let’s contrast one major diff: proprietary versus open source software.

You pay its authors for the software, its setup and sometimes, monthly hosting. As your biz grows and you add functions, say, a blog or a forum tool, you cough up for that code and implementation. Worse, specific customization or integration for your business needs may not even be possible.

If the closed source software vendor decides not to upgrade your product, you’re hooped. You must stick to the obsolete version, or switch products. Ka-ching.

In contrast, an open source program is free to view, modify and redistribute. There are no per-copy or per-use fees. Anyone with the requisite skills—and there are leagues of them—can use it as it is, customize it, or base entirely new projects on it.

In other words, when you pay a developer to integrate an open source CMS into your Web site, your investment pays for design, setup and hosting—not licence fees. The open source community of devoted geeks, er, developers continues to post labour-of-love enhancements of the CMS—to your potential benefit.
 
A CMS out-of-the-box rarely meets your exact needs (now and especially into the future), so it’s advantageous to have as many add-on options as possible. You’ll likely come to appreciate the power to format styles and add pages, manage user and admin access, set up photo galleries, create polls, manage FAQs, revise navigation, etc.

Choosing a robust, expandable CMS can extend your site’s lifespan by years.

My company integrates many CMS products. But time and time again, the one that met our exacting criteria and clients’ requirements was Drupal (pronounced "droo-puhl")—an open source CMS perfect for community Web portals and discussion sites, corporate Web sites/intranet portals, ecommerce applications and resource directories. The marketplace agrees it’s a winner: Drupal won the Overall Open Source CMS Award for 2007.  

(In case you’re curious, Drupal’s founder wanted to name it ‘dorp’—Dutch for 'village'—but made a typing boo-boo and found this name instead.)

Drupal’s user base of 250,000 registered members includes IBM, NASA, NATO, Popular Mechanics—and Hillary Clinton. Earlier this month, over 850 Drupalites attended its annual conference, where our two senior software dudes delivered a seminar in ensuring Drupal client satisfaction—a specialty of ours. (Hilary wasn’t there. She was busy in Ohio.)

If you’re thinking of self-managing your site, put your development money where it goes furthest. Don’t pay for expensive code destined to fossilize. Don’t risk months of lost time while a developer reinvents the CMS wheel. Choose open source from a savvy developer—and enjoy a living, growing organism destined to support you and your online goals well into the future.

(Submitted by Seth Klapman for 'Business Thompson Okanagan' April 2008 issue)

Have you any questions or comments? Can we help you at all with your content management system questions (open source Drupal or otherwise)? Please contact:

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