The announcement that the Whitehouse.gov site will be moving to an open-source content management system (CMS) from a proprietary custom built system is more than a sign of the times. It is a major move in the right direction and an example that all of us can and should follow.

Why go with a content management system for your web site? It lets you focus your money, time and attention on the content – what you show to the world – and not on proprietary technology development that comes from traditional methods. A content management system makes life easier and lets you update your website faster and at a lower cost. Why re-invent the wheel when what you really want to do is get your message out to your prospects and customers?

The Whitehouse.gov site will make use of Drupal but there are others out there as well. Some, like Joomla provide a fully featured environment while others such as WordPress specialize in particular content types. Thanks to the open source concept and community, these products range from free to low-cost. As a result your business can make use of Drupal or Joomla just like large enterprises have.

By the way, BRASSmedia uses WordPress for all of our websites. Primarily designed as a blogging platform it also supports many different forms of rich media and allows for custom designs. The days of hand coding HTML (a web programming language) are over and if your web development team is still promoting these type of stone-age tools maybe it’s time to look elsewhere for a modern strategy. It looks like Whitehouse.gov has.

Dean

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Nova Media

Strategic Online Marketing

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Advanced Systems

Corporate Computer and Network Specialists