Comments on: Don’t mistake your CMS for a development platform

By: Sprinkles on top — live from the DDJ

Sprinkles on top — live from the DDJ — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:32:51 +0000

[...] a lot more than a title and a body field, and they’re not meant to store rich metadata. You’re not supposed to build applications on top of them. They don’t manage information at all, they just put stuff up on the internet, whatever its [...]

By: How cloud computing and open source helped news organisations cut costs | Online News Design

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:52:28 +0000

[...] a post on Hacks/Hackers, Scott Klein, the Editor of News Applications at ProPublica said: "My advice to news [...]

By: Hoe ik het nieuws graag zou lezen

Hoe ik het nieuws graag zou lezen — Sat, 15 May 2010 09:39:24 +0000

[...] en hun uitgevers leven in het verleden. Ze weten niet wat gedaan, dus ze proberen om de boel te redden met speciale projecten hier en daar. Hippe infographics voor de verkiezingen elke zoveel jaar, een news app over de lokale [...]

By: IA for news websites: a link dump

IA for news websites: a link dump — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:45:50 +0000

[...] assumptions made by someone else. You can learn more about the pros and cons over at Sunlight Labs, Hacks & Hackers and Scot Hacker’s [...]

By: We’re in the information business

We’re in the information business — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:02:24 +0000

[...] a lot of excitement about infographics nowadays, and I love those myself. People get all warm and fuzzy about news apps and I do too. But ultimately, when thinking about the future of journalism on the web, [...]

By: Daniel Bachhuber

Daniel Bachhuber — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:08:45 +0000

Good points, Stijn. In my opinion, you shouldn't let a janky CMS get in the way of building innovative news applications but you also shouldn't be complacent with a janky CMS. I think the ideal scenario is one where you have an open source content management system that is well-tuned for the day to day editorial process and is also extensible, you can easily pull data out of it/push data into it, etc.

By: kleinmatic

kleinmatic — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 03:33:30 +0000

Stijn,

You and I agree that CMSes could use some innovation. I didn't say that all CMS development energy should be channeled elsewhere. I'm simply saying that newsrooms should use the right development tool for the thing they're making, and not get sidetracked by the capabilities of their CMS.

Thanks for commenting!

By: Stijn Debrouwere

Stijn Debrouwere — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 01:18:31 +0000

Some good points here, but they're based on the assumption that all the innovation should be channeled towards creating special one-off applications and whiz-bang interactive stuff.

I think there's a lot to be said for innovating how we present and publish day-to-day news as well. Most CMS'es still don't allow you to enter news in a well-formatted and structured way (see www.holovaty.com/writing/fundamental-change/) that would make it repurposable, nor do they allow you to get serious about contextualizing the news (see http://stdout.be/2010/tags-dont-cut-it/). E.g. the Texas Tribune chose Django as the base on which to build their CMS, because they wanted the flexibility to be able to experiment with their day-to-day publishing, and that requires more than just a playground for special occasions.

You're right though, you need the resources to pull off something like that (and the courage to say legacy software goodbye), because when using a MVC framework for everyday content management you do lose some things that a good CMS gives you for free. But it can pay off nicely if it's part of a larger strategy.