The Practical Guide to Selecting a New Web CMS

For Media, Entertainment, and Publishing companies

Presenters

Tom Wentworth, CMO- 13 Year CMS veteran at vendors Interwoven and

Ektron.

- @twentworth12 on Twitter

Chuck Fishman, Media, Entertainment and Publishing Director

- Drives Acquia’s Media, Entertainment, and Publishing Strategy

- @chuckdafonk on Twitter

What You’ll Learn in this Webinar

• Trends in the MEP World

• Why Now is the Right Time to Select a New CMS- Mobile, Social, Open

• Running a CMS Selection Process- Defining requirements

- Selecting vendors

- Vendor demonstrations and presentations

- Selecting an implementation partner

• Media, Entertainment, and Publishing Case Studies

Media and Entertainment Digital Trends• Barrier to creating digital content entry is lower than

ever = fractures audience

• Fast growing hits from the most unlikely places

• Mobile and apps

• Social streams and connected content

• Everyone wants content: Branded entertainment microsites are prevalent

• Content needs a unique URL

• Metadata is key to content discovery but is becoming extremely complex

• New digital content formats are emerging

= Media + Entertainment CMS must be highly adaptable

Video Content in 2013• Authentication Services

• Subscription Services

• Rise of YouTube Networks

• Branded Content

39 Billion Online Video Views in March - Comscore

Music Content in 2013

• Social streams do NOT replace artist sites

• 360 Artist Deals = Labels need site factories

• Labels want to know about the consumer across multiple artist sites

• New formats and subscription models – 68 billion streams vs 1.8 billion units sold in 2012

• Downloads are dead: Fans buy experiences: Google Hangouts, Kickstarter, PledgeMusic, BandPage

• New Record Labels are Brands: Scion A/V, Mountain Dew, Red Bull, Intel

• Digital Distribution and meta data is extremely complex

Publisher Content 2013

• Platform Promiscuous – tablet ownership to surpass PCs by 2017

• Publishers are increasingly video focused

• Paywalls aren’t going away – more going up

• Community + UGC does well with niche publishing content

• Digital only magazines have failed: The Daily

• New ways to access magazine content: Next Issue Media, Flipboard

• News sites still trump other site categories in terms of traffic

2003-2010

2010 +

First Generation CMS

• Brochureware websites• Vendor pioneers Interwoven,

Vignette• CMS part of Enterprise Content

Management Suites

Second Generation CMS

• Dynamic Websites• Marketing-driven

• Business results focused

Third Generation CMS

• Mobile, Social, Personal, Cloud

History of CMS

1994-2003

Putting it in Perspective

2000-2004•** This is probably when your CMS was built **

2006•Facebook opens to the world

2007•IPhone Launches

•Twitter Hits the mainstream

2010•iPad Launches•HTML 5

2011•Ethan Marcotte coins “Responsive Web Design”

2013•1.5 Billion People Watch Psy - Gangham Style

Legacy CMS Challenges

• Mobile sites are an afterthought, or impossible

• They are expensive to own- High maintenance costs

- Difficult to find experienced development resources

• Plagued by Usability issues- Products were designed before the advent of modern

user interface best practices

- Return of the “Webmaster Bottleneck”

• Require multiple point solutions- Social communities

- Video

Web CMS isn’t about Web Publishingit’s about Customer Experiences

The New Web Content Management MandateManage, Measure, Engage

Vendors are Taking Two Approaches:Monolithic Suites

User Generated

Content

Integrated Digital Experiences

CONTENT

COMMUNITY

Email

Analytics

Marketing automation

Personalization

COMMERCE

DAM

CRM

Be wary of vendors that

promise a big-bang solution; they are more interested in selling you all the components of

their suites than they are in helping you leverage what you

already own.

Source: Harnessing the Convergence of Customer Experience Management Solutions

Running a CMS Evaluation

Identify Requirements +

Stakeholders

Define Vendor Shortlist

RFPVendor

Evaluations

Selections + Contracts

* Allocate 3-6 Months for Evaluation

Simplified Content Management Lifecycle

Create

• In-Line Editing

• Structured Content Authoring

• Drag and Drop Page Creation

Manage

• Workflow• Taxonomies• Metadata• Permissions

Publish

• Content Reuse

• Multi-format• Multi-

language• Multi-site

Key RequirementsContent Authoring

• Inline Editing- Edit content in-place

• Structured Content Authoring- Forms-based

• Drag + Drop Page Creation- Assemble pages

without developers

• Media Management- Resizing, Cropping,

Transcoding

Key RequirementsWorkflow

• Approval Process for Publishing- Draft, In-Review,

Published

• Version History- Quickly compare

versions

• Audit Trails- Capture feedback on

changes

• Reporting- Bottlenecks

Key RequirementsMulti-lingual + Content Re-Use

• Separation of Content from Presentation- Create content once, re-use in

multiple locations

- Categorize content using taxonomies for automated placement

• Manage content in multiple languages- Manual or automation

translation support

- Define relationship between languages

Key FeaturesSecurity + Permissions

• Users- Authorized CMS users

• Groups- Collections of users

and other groups.

• Permissions- Define access levels

to folders and content

• Roles- Define access

privileges to users and groups

Key FeaturesSocial Communities & Collaboration

• Blogs

• Networking, Friending, and Following

• Ratings + Reviews

• Collaboration

• Content Moderation

There are Lots of Vendors…

Defining a Vendor Shortlist

• Pick a Development Platform(s)- .NET, Java, PHP

• Pick a Deployment Model- Cloud, On-Premise

• Select Vendors to Evaluation- Work with Analysts

• Forrester, Gartner, Digital Clarity Group, Real Story Group, others

- Evaluate Products• Downloads, Trials

- Engage Partners

Picking a Development PlatformAnd Does it Matter?

• .NET Framework- Microsoft-only

- Mature development environment

• Java- Cross-platform

- Popular among larger enterprises and specific verticals like financial services

• PHP- Cross-platform

- Fastest growing CMS development platform

PHP Content Management Systems Growing Fastest

Open Source vs. Proprietary CMSTop Five Myths About Open Source WCM

1. Open Source is just for blogs and simple sites

2. Open Source isn’t secure

3. Open Source won’t scale to handle the world’s largest sites

4. Open Source requires tribal knowledge

5. Open Source won’t work well with my marketing tools

Building a good RFP

• Project overview- Provide a detailed written description of the problems you

are trying to solve.

• Process- Clearly describe your end-to-end evaluation process w/

timeframes

• Requirements- Articulate your requirements. Avoid “Yes/No” questions in

favor of open ended

• Scenarios- Frame your requirements into actual real-world usage

scenarios but don’t prescribe the solution

Evaluate Scenarios

Okay Example

• The Video Player module is one of the most heavily used features of our current CMS. Demonstrate how to add video to a site..

Great Example

• One of the major weaknesses of the current CMS is not having the ability to create a new website. Demonstrate how to create a new website including:

• Creating a homepage

• Developing templates and style sheets for the underlying pages. Templates will carry the same footer across all pages of the website.

• Creating a subsite with a different homepage but with design elements that tie it to the overall website.

• Show how subsites work with a different domain (e.g., xyz.city.gov)

Vendor Presentations… or the Dog & Pony Show

• Allocate enough time to cover your scenarios and requirements

- Typically 90-120 minutes

• Ask the vendor to bring the right resources- The Sales Engineer is your friend

• Ask the vendor to minimize the “About Us” pitch

- Important, but should have already been covered during initial diligence

• Segment the presentation by audience

- Developers/Designers vs. Business Users

Evaluate Usability not Curb Appeal

Typical License and Deployment Models• Deployment Model

- On-Premise: Software is deployed on owned servers.

- Cloud: Software is deployed in the cloud.

- Hybrid: Authoring servers on-premise, delivery servers in the cloud

• License Types- Perpetual: You buy the software up-front, and pay

the vendor a yearly fee for access to upgrades and support.

- Subscription: You rent the software, services, and support typically on an annual basis.

- Open Source: No software license fee. Vendors like Acquia provide support.

Selecting an Implementation Partner

• Working with Vendor Professional Services vs. an Implementation Partner

• Types of Partners- Global, Regional, etc.

• What is their implementation methodology?

• Do they understand your key drivers?

• What is their comfort level with the technologies?- You’d be surprised…

Don’t Forget about Training!

• For Developers- Learn the fundamental concepts and techniques for

developing CMS applications, including page design, APIs, content models, and more.

• For Administrators- Lean server administration concepts and best practices,

from installation and configuration through ongoing health, performance, and availability.

• For End Users- Teach users the basics of content management

including authoring, workflow, and publishing.

Case Studies

The GrammysNBC Universal

@theGRAMMYs and Drupal

@theGRAMMYs and Drupal

NBC Universal and Drupal• Uses Drupal as a centralized

publishing system – 30 to 40 properties

• Enterprise platforms were content specific

• Drupal community = quicker deployment times

• Scales with editorial staff – some brands have up to 30 editors with different roles

Dream It. Drupal It.