Content Management Features
Once you've decided to go with an ASP model for content management, it's important to understand what you're looking for.
The basic principle of content management is to separate content from its presentation. A CMS stores plain text and images in a discrete repository (either in a database or in a separate file system) to be plugged into HTML templates on demand. You can then update content without having to touch the HTMLâ€"or change the look and feel of the site without affecting the content. Content that appears several places on a site can be updated in one place, without fear of inconsistency. The upshot is that once the templates have been built, non-technical users can publish content to the Web and update it without help from IT staff.
Most CMSes also play a role in content deliveryâ€"that is, in serving content to the user's browser and supporting some level of interaction. Such features as page caching, personalisation, and syndication all fall under the rubric of content delivery.
Here's a brief rundown of the groups of features you can expect to find in most CMSes, with an eye toward the trade-offs of opting for a low-cost, ASP-based system:
Setup. ASPs typically charge a one-time fee for setup, which includes opening an account, assisting with user management, and building a custom back-end interface to the system. Some ASPs also provide assistance in building the front-end templates and may hook you up with design partners. But, of course, you don't have to worry about installing the system or even client software, since everything happens through the browser.
Metadata. To fully exploit the power of a CMS, content producers need to tag content elements with keywords. This helps produce meaningful search results on the site. But it also lays the groundwork for personalisation and syndication, where only certain types of content are shown to certain users according to their profilesâ€"or end up being sent to certain content partners according to their needs. The ability to select meta-tags from a list, in order to ensure consistency, is highly desirable.
Workflow. The idea for CMSes grew out of enterprise document management systems that included workflow and process control tools. In large enterprises, workflow can be half the reason to implement a CMS, as managers, legal departments, copy editors, and Web producers must sign off on pages before they go live. This is where the big-ticket players excel. A common CMS mistake, however, is to create complex workflow models that are too procedural and hard to modify as needs changeâ€"one reason a lower-end system may be a better idea.
Security. For better or worse, large enterprises may give hundreds of users access to a CMS. The packages are designed to meet this challenge, offering customisable levels of authorisation with many different groups of rights tied to many different types of users. With fewer hands involved in producing Web content (which, many would argue, is a good idea) the ability to handle such complexity becomes less critical. For smaller companies, or for those that simply wish to automate only the latter phases of content production, an ASP-based CMS should work fine.
Personalisation. A Web site can deliver a mix of content targeting an individual visitor based on either explicit personalisation (where users register and state their preferences) or implicit personalisation (where a log of user behaviour helps determine what will be served up next). A more common type of -personalisation"â€"automatic detection of the visitor's browser, device, and operating system, so content can be served in an appropriate formatâ€"is highly desirable.
Syndication. Large sites primarily concerned with online publishing often need to export many articles, parsed using XML, to a variety of different venues. This can get quite complex for any CMS to handle. More commonly, many companies export press releases, distribute content via e-mail, and save content in PDF files. Most low-end packages should be able to handle these tasks at the least.
Reporting. Software such as WebTrends and ASPs such as WebSideStory now offer great tools for analysing site traffic patternsâ€"where visitors come from, how long they stay, where they go, and so on. An ASP-based CMS should either offer similar functionality or allow you to use commercial analysis tools.
One last word
Finally, again remember that outsourcing always has its risks. A large e-commerce site is not the best candidate for an ASP-based CMS, due to special security, administration, and integration demands. But most sites still produce thousands of pages of non-interactive brochureware that need constant management and frequent updating. As long as an ASP uses a standardised XML schema to hold your data and the data is stored separately from the HTML templates, you should be able to retrieve all your content and port it to another CMS if the need arises.
