CMS Insights

The occasional technological glitch has become commonplace in many publishers' move to digital, and open source CMS platforms are certainly no exception to this rule. On one hand, publishers using open source solutions have access to a vibrant online community, which makes it easy to ask questions in a forum and receive help within a few business days. But for immediate open source gratification, it’s helpful to be armed with...more

Printers have offered digital services for several years, from Web site development to digital editions to digital asset management. Now they’re moving into content management services as well.

Last week, Worldcolor announced a partnership with Mark Logic to offer the Worldcolor Custom Publishing Engine, which allows publishers to repurpose existing content (text, photographs, video and audio) into new publications.

Meanwhile, Publishers Press is preparing to launch a...more

Most of us have cycled through our share of Web CMS platforms, usually encountering fatal flaws—scalability or integration issues—much faster than we'd like. Before you make the jump to your next CMS, consider adopting a proof of concept phase before moving to a more involved pilot test phase. This initial discovery stage will give you the opportunity to react to incompatibilities and move on to your next choice without a...more

Publishers Press Adds Content Management to Digital Suite
In an effort to create a fully integrated content distribution services platform, Shepherdsville, Kentucky-based printer Publishers Press has signed an OEM agreement with Atex Press to market the company’s Atex Text Mining engine and the Atex Polopoly Web content management system under a Software as a Service model to its publishing clients.

According to Publishers Press, Atex’s Polopoly Web CMS features...more

As publishers continue to embrace open source CMS, where can they find technical support? While day-to-day content changes should be handled by staff significant changes to site architecture, as well as site maintenance, need to be handled by individual developers or Web firms who know what they’re doing.

Most open source CMS communities, including Drupal, Joomla and Plone, offer resource centers where users can find developer...more

From site search to related stories and fully leveraging content categories, tagging is an important step in offering consumers a complete experience while visiting your Web site. The process, however, can get a bit complicated.

For most publishers, it involves a multi-tiered approach: creating keywords to be tagged in each article, tagging the articles themselves so that they appear in certain categories and linking related articles together. Most...more

In the print world, reader surveys reveal to editors what subscribers want from their magazine content. Now, Web analytics offer real-time feedback on user Web site behavior and content preferences. These metrics help guide editors in producing digital content that keeps visitors on the site longer and coming back for more. The analytics can also be integrated into a Web CMS to more closely fuse data to production.

At...more

As many publishers have discovered when it comes to CMS, the size and internal workings of your organization directly impacts the philosophy behind your admin structure. In the name of time and limited resources, smaller publishers generally tend to give admin carte blanche to staffers loading and managing a publication’s site; larger organizations, meanwhile dole out admin rights more sparingly and have a more defined system in place. Here, publishers...more

One of the most important things to consider when planning your next CMS upgrade is the rate at which your company’s needs might change in the future. At the time of the upgrade, your Web site may offer a range of content types, such as articles, blogs and videos, but as content platform options grow, your company may want explore how other opportunities might fit into your content management needs,...more

Now more than ever, publishers are finding that good content reigns supreme. Therefore, it only makes sense that the content management systems in charge of safekeeping and conveying these assets are of critical importance. But with a swirl of commercial staples and innovative open source systems (like Drupal, Joomla!, Alfresco and eZPublish) growing in popularity, how does a publisher looking to overhaul choose the best system?

As with everything,...more

Nstein: Lighter Losses through First Half

Montreal-based Nstein Technologies reported $6.2 million in revenue during the second quarter of 2009, up 3 percent from $6 million during the same period last year. The company reported a $258,841, an improvement over a $1.55 million loss during the same period last year.

Through the first six months, Nstein reported a loss of $417,788 on $11.57 million in revenue. That’s compared to a $1.64 million...more

A CMS these days automatically takes care of much of your basic SEO responsibilities. However, many publishers are still saddled with legacy technology that necessitates manual SEO optimization as content is entered into the system. Either way, the editors who are responsible for the content production often don't realize what's going on behind the scenes. Here's a quick primer on what your CMS does for you, and what you can...more