Web content management systems (Web CMS) allow less than web savvy individuals to create, edit, review, index, search, and archive image media, audio files, video files, electronic documents, and most importantly, web content. I like to use a web application called WordPress, which allows you with little to no knowledge of programming or markup to create and manage content with relative ease.
All administrative tasks are completed through a browser based interface with user level security, only requiring a coder/designer (that’s me) to setup and add features. A database will be required to store content, metadata, and/or artifacts that might be needed by the system. Server side caching is also enabled to boost performance for websites that will receive large volumes of traffic on a regular basis.
WordPress is used by a number of various businesses across the globe: AMD, Ben & Jerry, CNN, Coke, eBay, Ford, GE, Logitech, MTV, Samsung, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! as well as celebrities: Kevin Smith, Lance Armstrong, Martha Stewart, Richard Branson, Wyclef Jean, and the list goes on. Sometimes I’ll get asked to use something like Joomla or Mambo, but to be brutally honest: why not use the best?
It’s a state-of-the-art publishing platform that not only focuses on web standards and the usability experience, but is also open source, meaning it’s free and hundreds and thousands of people all over the world work on it and with it (more than any commercial platform). We’re free to use it for any website you can imagine, even if it’s a Fortune 500 website without paying anyone anything in licensing fees.
