New Forum - Content Management

[Brett_Tabke]

The great majority of WebmasterWorld members have taking the plunge into content. Either pushed there by contextual advertising systems, affiliate programs
or because of blog influences - content is the king of todays successful websites.

One request:

Lets try to stay away from software questions and/or recommendations. Please take specific software q's up with the tech support for that software package.

[treeline]

Thank you! This is a great idea.

[RobinL]

Yea! I'm very excited for this forum and it comes just in time with my having a bunch of more free time! Expect to see me here a lot!

Robin

[jcmoon]

Either pushed there by contextual advertising systems, affilaite programs or because of blog influences -

Or perhaps because it's mentioned in 5 out of some guy's list [webmasterworld.com] of 26 steps ... :)

[deejay]

ooo now this is going to be interesting.

Good call, Brett & Co

[mister charlie]

I recall seeing some mention of this type of forum earlier.

Happy to see it a reality.

[ronburk]

And yet, another nearby forum still lists among its purposes:

Topics include, content creation, management

And that forum doesn't seem to have an overflow of traffic that would necessitate splitting.

But that's just me :-).

[Hanu]

Brett,

Lets try to stay away from software questions and/or recommendations.

I don't seem to get it. I can't recommend a CMS? What good is this formum for then? Don't get me wrong, I am not affiliated with any commercial CMS vendor and I only sparingly contribute to open source CMS. If I have a recommendation towards or against a particular CMS, that would be entirely based on my own experience. And I can't even do that?

[irock]

No offense... but I can't see how the moderators can enforce this policy if bulk of the questions are actually either about CMS recommendations or seeking help for their software.

[jeremy goodrich]

affilaite programs

Featured homepage discussion misspelling ;)

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Lets try to stay away from software questions and/or recommendations.

Won't this be a large part of the interest in this forum?

[henry0]

I think that Brett has in mind something different

Although the forum title could be miss leading
I believe the forum is not about CMS.

My thoughts about topics to be discussed:
Content gathering
Content analysis
Content serializing
New content development
And more in that field….

Am I wrong?

[PeteM]

"Lets try to stay away from software questions and/or recommendations." - Disagree, discussions of this nature, providing they are well balanced are intersting and educational.

"Please take specific software q's up with the tech support for that software package." - Completely agree.

Pete

[jbinbpt]

There is already a Content, Writing and Copyright forum.
I agree the CMS should be a separate forum, but I don't see how we can stay away from discussions on specific products.

[rbacal]

Is blog type stuff a part of this? (I have a bunch of questions on that topic, but there doesn't seem to be a place).

[Brett_Tabke]

> management

Yes, this is more oriented towards the management and handling site of content than the creation side.

> overflow

The majority of the content management questions have shown up in the webmaster general forum. We are in the process of moving alot of those over this way.

> software

Ya, it is tough to keep it out of the discussion - I totally aggree.

What we are trying to avoid is software authors being goaded into posting for/against their systems. They will show up here regardless because it is like flies to the honey. I know of 5 cms authors in these forums. How do I know? Two things usually happen then: either they have to come in here and promote their software, or 2) defend it. Neither of which do us much good.

In that sense, staying away from specific sofware packages is no different than much of the rest of WebmasterWorld. Please use your best judgement and ask yourself how the message could still be as valuable without a mention of the specific software.

> blog

Content management is content management regardless if that is blog content, product content, or simply your review of the latest xbox game - content is still content.

---

Content gathering
Content analysis
Content serializing
New content development

---

Very good points. I labored for quite awhile with the title of the forum.

[tangor]

I wonder how MANAGEMENT of content can be discussed without exploring the TOOLS necessary to manage it. Otherwise we're talking about databases and that's covered elsewhere. Or CMS programs (which are similar to databases) and discussed elsewhere. Or we're talking about what kind of content brings traffic (discussed everywhere). Meanwhile, I use three x five index cards and a pencil. And an Access database, a blog in Perl, Excel spreadsheets, a MySQL backend. My imagination. And some knowledge of the niche in which I operate.

We already "use it and manage it" or we don't have a website. I would dearly love to find a new magic bullet in this regard!

Without discussing the tools avaiable to make it happen, of course. :)

A little more guidance on the purpose of this forum would be VERY helpful!

[henry0]

Major factor in starting from ground zero is client education
Most do think that a brochure and a few press releases will do it.
Then since content is "King" the second step in education is to find a company responsible for developing new content.

Here are some guidelines for those in search of some guidance and administrative "solution":

Goals

• Site purpose
  
• Project scope: Main site and umbrella sites
  
• Centralization issues
  
• Metrics: Measure user's site perception and incorporate user's perception with press and trend to define a general "feeling"
  
• Performance: This regards the tech aspect and challenges.
  

Audience

• User experience: Define primary and secondary users
  
• Value proposition: in term of strategic and tactical
  
• Scenarios: Competition analysis (Features, personalization and tech issues)
  

Site content

• Existing content
  
• Updating content
  

Content acquisition method
Documenting via content inventory organized by:
Source and audience type
Then by:

• Static
  
• Dynamic
  
• Functional
  
• And Transactional
  

Schemes
Ambiguous, topical audience oriented, metaphor driven or hybrid

And finally ranking content

Conceptuality and usability.

• Navigation system: Hierarchical, global and local
  
• Labeling pages links and defining if links will be textual or iconic
  
• Blue print to include relationship between entry, label, content and functions
  

Visual design

• Grids to depict elements' placement
  
• Mockup: With content linkage
  
• Review alignment, contrast and find repetition if any.
  
• Web prototype to review functionality, appearance and errors
  

[wmuser]

Nice guide henry0