COM 125 Week 2:IRC

CMS?
The term Content Management System was originally used for website publishing and management systems. Early content management systems were developed internally at organizations which were doing a lot of web publishing, such as on-line magazines, newspapers, and corporate newsletters. In 1995, 'CNET spun out its internal web document management and publication system into a separate company called Vignette, which opened up the market for commercial content management systems' [Wikipedia, 2005].

CMS is Content Management System. This feature is used to help manage the content in a web page. It is found in every page found in the Internet. The CMS consists of the CMS and the CDA. CMA is the Content Management Application and the CDA is Content Delivery Application. Expanded in 1995, CMS and its applications has helped evolve the internet to the vastness it is today. Moreover, it has made every person with an Internet connection and an idea to be webmasters.Now, it is easy for us to find out how CMS and its applications has helped the users in making their lives easier and how it has helped to make the internet we know today. However, we shall now take a look at how the Internet would be if there was no CMS.First of all, every content manager or author would be well versed with the HTML codes. These authors would need to have an eye for detail and the patience to sit and look through the many pages of HTML codes to find the specific code to change or delete. This would make it difficult for every technophobe to modify or remove content from their website; let alone create one! Imagine this, every techno-geek would be the richest people in the world, with the number of web pages and blogs that we have today.Without the CMS, web masters would have to manually update information added and compile them as and when necessary. Other features available today like, web-based publishing, format management, revision control, indexing, searching and retrieval would not have been possible.Imagine an Internet without web-based publishing. Oh the woe! Individuals like us would not be able to use template/s, wizards or other tools to modify the web page that we most probably would not have. We would not be able to add documents, either electronic or scanned, PDF or otherwise. Without the revision control feature, content would not be easily updated to a newer version or restored. The user would not track changes they have made. Moreover, researchers or students like us would not be able to do word searches we do today. Information would not be indexed, therefore close to impossible to search and retrieve.

One-to-one marketing

Without CMS, one-to-one marketing; which is 'the ability of a web site to tailor its content and advertising to a user’s specific needs using information provided by the user' [Wikipedia 2005], would be impossible to think of. When one searches for ‘restaurants in Singapore’, banners of banking in China would pop-up as well.TodayToday there are different types of CMS’s. First one is Module-based CMS. Most tasks in a document's life-cycle are served by CMS modules. Common modules are document creation/editing, transforming and publishing. Then there is Document transformation language-based CMS. Another approach to CMS building with use of open standards. CMS compile a document from the stream of ‘pure’ [Whatis.com Definition 2003] data, design template and functionality templates. The last type is the Web-based CMS. Another approach to CMS building uses databases to interact with the data to parse them into visual content. Data stored in a database is queried and compiled into html pages or other documents and transformed using cascading style sheets. These systems can include a number of other functions, such as discussion boards, blogs, or email newsletters.Two factors must be considered before an organization decides to invest in a CMS. First, an organization's size and geographic dispersion must be considered especially if an organization is spread out over several countries. For these organizations, the transition to CMS is more difficult. Secondly, the diversity of the electronic data forms used within an organization must be considered. If an organization uses text documents, graphics, video, audio, and diagrams to convey information, the content will be more difficult to manage.

Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 26th, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system,Content Management SystemWhatis.com Definition. Retrieved January 24th, 2007, from http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid26_gci508916,00.html, SearchWebServices.com Definitions