I have often been accused of being far to technical when I am talking with other people about web sites, coding and general geekery. Well today I hope to do the same and explain what a Content Management System is, and what can it do for you.
A Content Management system is software that runs online and makes it easy to organize, control, and update a website. The most important feature a Content Management System provides the average user is the automatic organization and creation of links. Content Management Systems make it easy for the average user who has no knowledge of HTML, PHP or other languages to publish professional content. Most systems also provide a wealth of other behind the scene features such as link aliasing and access controls.
A good content management system should take the most complicated parts of a website and automate it, completely in the background.
At Inlet Media I work on two separate Content Management System Platforms. Wordpress which is the blogging standard, and Drupal, which runs this website and is far more powerful and thus far more complicated. It depends on the situation as to which platform will work for your project. The general rule is that if you are going to have a simple site/blog for your business then Wordpress will give you all the power under the hood that you need. If you need to build an online community, create a large amount of pages, blogs, forums, and media then Drupal is a far greater choice. There are of course a myriad of others out there but it would be impossible try them all out.
The most important thing for us as web designers, and you as the web site owner is that it gives control back to you. If you need to create a new page, and have it linked across the website, you do not have to call Inlet Media for any help. The open source nature of the Content Management Systems we use also means that you can go and find a large community of programmers who can help you. With Wordpress or Drupal you are not locked into any sort of proprietary software.
This means freedom for you and greater accessibility for the web. At Inlet Media we do not even generally offer static website design services anymore as it is not worthwhile for our clients.
From the Portfolio
