CMS, Search, and Signal Flares
March 14, 2010
In my first Internet monograph—Internet 2000: The Path to the Total Network, published in 1994 by Infonortics Ltd., Tetbury, Glos—I discussed the challenges Web information posed. One of my points was:
The Internet is different from, print, video, or facsimile because it can incorporate elements of each medium in real time.
Content management systems focused on making HTML Web pages and making it possible for non programmers to create a page, ftp it to a server, and handle the various scripting issues that arose from the hackathon that HTML triggered. Since I wrote that sentence in 1994, the point-and-click browser model has supplanted other types of computer interfaces. The simplicity for the user insulates the user from the complexity beneath the surface. Even the phrase “code behind” baffles most Internet users with whom I speak.
Content management vendors have responded in one or more ways:
- Some have stuck to the “it’s really easy” method. When the customer discovers that CMS is not easy, the vendor moves on to a new town. This 19th century frontier entrepreneurship works as long as there is a “new” next town. But as Americans have learned, once one hits that Manifest Destiny barrier, life gets tougher.
- Some CMS wizards have tried to beef up their CMS to handle the increasingly complex features and functions. These systems work * when * the client has enough money, computing expertise, and stamina to see the job through. Not surprisingly, once a six or seven figure job is done, no one is too eager to reengineer the system to handle the “next big thing.” So the system just keeps doing what it is doing until the company does a rip-and-replace, which is another six or seven figure job. When these jobs go off the rails, then litigation often results.
- Some CMS vendors shift gears and become something that is more narrowly defined. Examples range from customer support content management to certain types of eDiscovery work. The idea is that replacing those glittering generalities with more narrowly defined functions makes it possible for the company to survive or successfully sell itself.
- Go open source and hope that the halo about “community” puts Neosporin on the infected wounds of what was originally code written for a single client and then boldly marketed as a “solution”.
- Mix and match.
When I read “Latest MySource Matrix Release Includes Funnelback Search Integration for Superior Search Capability”, I thought about the long journey that CMS vendors have traveled since making and managing Web pages became the equivalent of the Oklahoma Land Rush for some 19th century type entrepreneurs.
Funnelback is a search engine that is now part of Squiz, “a supported open source solutions company”. Funnelback is a search and retrieval system that was nurtured in an Australian university and research Petri dish.
The key point in the write up was:
MySource Matrix has been integrated with purpose-built Funnelback binaries incorporating powerful features for improving search results such as Contextual Navigation, Featured Pages, Type Formats and spelling suggestions. The Funnelback Search Page asset has been expanded to make it easy to implement these features. Scripts are available within the Funnelback package which can be configured to update the index, giving the administrator control over the frequency with which the indexer is run, according to the amount of content being indexed and its dynamic requirements.
My take on this is that the open source CMS created a situation in which some users were not able to locate content. The addition of search as a utility bolsters the CMS. My hunch is that CMS is morphing into a “portal” or “platform” play. Will this make users happy? I don’t know. The recent work we have done suggests that users cannot articulate what they want or need when it comes to content creation and management.
I am delighted that search is being added to a CMS. I am not confident that search alone can address the many hurdles that a CMS must jump over. Most people are not in the content producing business or are most CMS users programmers. Software that tries to facilitate both processes in a world that is shifting to rich media has a big job to tackle.
CMS is, in my opinion, increasingly a problem. Consultants are reinventing themselves. Roll ups are taking place. Open source solutions are proliferating. In short, CMS is and is likely to continue to be a black eye in the enterprise software sector.
Stephen E Arnold, March 14, 2010
No one paid me to write about content management systems. I will report non payment to the GSA, which has a heck of a content management system.
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