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Open Source Content Management Systems

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Open Source BenefitsRapid Deployment of New Features

If a tool is 80% useful, improving it is much cheaper than starting fresh.

As an application gains supporters and users it grows along with their needs

This process can move much faster than proprietary software, which is tied to the budget, market analysis and development resource constraints of one corporation

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Open Source BenefitsVendor Independence

Vendors make decisions based on financial factors

Licensing fees and policies change Vendors don't always survive

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Open Source BenefitsThe Flexibility to Adapt

Internal Improvements Lack of vendor support is no reason to go

without! Added features may just be a few

development hours away Alternative Branches

If some users disagrees with the direction of a project, they can take branch it and continue development

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Open Source BenefitsFree Support Options

Searchable support forums Web-based documentation with public

comments Free, local user groups Free mailing lists

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Web site

A web site is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or more web servers, usually accessible via the Internet.*

* Wikipedia.com

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Blog

A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site.*

It is usually maintained by an individual. It has regular entries of commentary,

descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

* Wikipedia.com

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Content Management System A content management system (CMS) is a

computer application used to create, edit, manage, and publish content in a consistently organized fashion.

CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators' manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures.

The content managed may include computer files, image media, audio files, video files, electronic documents, and Web content.

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Web Content Management System

A web content management system is a CMS designed to simplify the publication of Web content to Web sites, in particular allowing content creators to submit content without requiring technical knowledge of HTML or the uploading of files.

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OSCMS GrowthOpen Source CMS Rocks! New features and connections you hadn’t even

thought of Cheap start-up costs Sustainable long-term costs Members-only areas Comments User posts “Send to Friend” and other viral marketing Bookmarking User profiles

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CMS Definitions: Practical Not only do content management systems help website

users with content editing, they also take care of a lot of "behind the scenes" work such as:

Automatically generate navigation elements Making content searchable and indexable Keeping track of users, their permissions and

security settings And much, much more.

By Jon Stahl from http://plone.org/about/what-is-a-cms

CMS Application Types

General Platforms Blogware Wiki Applications

General CMS Platform

Software designed for wide variety of content and functionality

Usually modular Framework for incorporating other

applications/services

General Platform Examples

Drupal: http://www.drupal.org Locally: http://groups.drupal.org/twin-cities

Joomla: http://www.joomla.org

Plone: http://www.plone.org

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Drupal Drupal.org Founder: Dries Buytaert

(BE) Since 2001 Version 4.7 Not a blog system, but a CMS

with blog functionality Very community-oriented Estimation: 75.000 sites Civicspace

Blogware

Designed to be host chronicle or journal site with chronologically arranged content

Commonly has a central single focus (like an issue or a person) and/or single source (like a person or an organization)

Blogware examples

Wordpress: http://www.wordpress.org

Movable Type: http://www.movabletype.org/

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Wordpress Wordpress.org Founder:

Matt Mullenweg(Houston, TX)

Since 2003 Version 2.0.2 Hundreds of thousands of

blogs Most popular standalone

blog software

Wiki applications

Primary characteristic: group editing capability, revisions, transparency

Collections of content (like Wikipedia) meant for use for reference and as resource to be collaboratively edited, maintained

Wiki application example

Mediawiki: http://www.mediawiki.org

Resources: Planning

Techsoup Learning Center http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/webb

uilding/index.cfm

Resources: OSCMS Primers

NOSI Primer http://www.nosi.net (downloadable PDF)

True costs of OSS http://www.idealware.org/articles/true_costs_

software.php (Michelle Murrain)

Resources: Find/Try OSCMS Wikipedia OSCMS category index

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Open_source_content_management_systems

Mashable’s list of 80+ OSCMS http://mashable.com/2007/07/30/content-manageme

nt-systems/ OpenSource CMS demo site

http://www.opensourcecms.com/ CMS Matrix comparison site

http://www.cmsmatrix.org

Resources: Reviews NTEN Vendor Satisfaction Report

http://nten.org/research/vendor-satisfaction

Techsoup’s Idealware.org reprint of Drupal, Joomla, Plone review http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/webbuilding

Adobe Newsletter Review of 5 OSCMS Apps http://www.adobe.com/newsletters/edge/april2008/

articles/article4/index.html

Google a question, read site forums

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Part two: Case Study

WordPress

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Wordpress.com

It’s a hosted blogging service. Uses a version of the open source

package. Users can start a blog in seconds without

any technical knowledge. Similar to other blogging services such as

Blogger or Typepad.

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Wordpress.com: Registration

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Wordpress.com: Registration

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Wordpress.com: Registration

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Wordpress.com: Registration

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Wordpress.com: Registration

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Wordpress.com: Registration

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Editing Content

Editor’s View

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Quick intro: WordPress A state-of-the-art publishing platform with

a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.

One of the most popular blogging platforms (if not the most).

Capable of being more than just a blog platform. It's capable of being a full-blown CMS (Content Management System).

Available for free at www.wordpress.org.

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WordPress Users Anden Solutions – www.andensolutions.com The New York Times publishes over 50 WordPress-

powered blogs. CNN Political Ticker - http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/ NASA Ames Research Center -

http://center.arc.nasa.gov Ford autoshow - http://autoshows.ford.com/ TechCrunch.com Gizmodo.com About.com http://babyparenting.about.com/ Stephen Colbert - www.colbertnation.com http://www.colourlovers.com/blog Etc.

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WordPress Requirements A Web Server with:

PHP version 4.3 or greater (free) MySQL database version 4.0 or greater (free)

An access to your web server (via shell or FTP)

A text editor An FTP Client (if you need to install

WordPress on a remote server) Your web browser of choice

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WordPress Installation1. Download WordPress from

http://wordpress.org/download/ and unzip it. 2. Create a database for WordPress on your web server,

as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it.

3. Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.

4. Open wp-config.php in your favorite text editor and fill in your database details.

5. Place the WordPress files in the desired location on your web server.

6. Run the WordPress installation script by accessing wp-admin/install.php in your favorite web browser.

7. That's it! WordPress should now be installed. *

* http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress

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Enter title and email

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Installation Complete!

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Login

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Control Panel… Start writing content

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The web site!

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WordPress Themes

http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ Easy to download and activate. Users can develop custom themes for

their websites. E.g. www.andensolutions.com

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WordPress Plugins

Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ Features like:

Shopping cart, sidebar widgets, tag clouds, search, event calendar, multi-language, image gallery, media gallery, translation, navigation, traffic management, guestbook, page management, etc.

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WordPress Benefits Open source technology: free, thoroughly tested, easy

addition of new functionality Editing without needing to know HTML Easy handling of “rolling events” like speaking

engagements Post-dating of articles so they can automatically “go

live” on the scheduled date (as is required with embargoed articles until their print publication date)

Reader participation through comments Organization of the content using tags Free support by the very responsive developer and user

communities Easily extensible through the use of plugins Tools for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

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WordPress and SEO WordPress can be customized to automate

many of the most hard SEO (Search engine

optimization) tasks. Generates well written html. SEO Title Tag plug-in that allows you to

customize each Title Tag. HTML sitemap plug-in and an XML sitemap

plug-in. Turn on Permalinks. Use Google Analytics plug-in for WordPress.

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WordPress disadvantages

It isn’t a full CMS product. You need to keep your installation up to

date. Many off-the-shelf themes have a

tendency to look the same or similar.