Content Management Systems (CMS) are used to manage web based content and media particularly for a large user base. CMS’s are extremely interactive in the sense that users can usually customize how the CMS looks, feels, and works for them individually while still maintaining the overall purpose and function of the CMS put in place. A CMS typically comes in two components, the Content Management Application (CMA) and the Content Delivery Application (CDA).
The CMA is the component most users will see and use. It is responsible for the ease of use of the website. The CMA is the part that will allow an author to publish his content to the website, remove content, and edit content with little to no knowledge of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). This type of set up is ideal for the small business owner or average person who has a need for a website or an online presence but can not be bothered with the hassle of learning the many aspects of setting up and maintaining one.
The CDA is the backend of your CMS. It will take the information supplied by the user and publish it into an update on the website using web-based publishing. Other features most commonly supported by CMS’s are format management, revision management, searching, indexing, and content retrieval.
Web-based publishing allows individuals to use a template or a set of templates approved by the creators of the CMS, along with documentation, guides, and wizards to edit Web Content. The format management feature allows documents including legacy electronic documents and scanned paper documents to be formatted into HTML or Portable Document Format (PDF) for the Web site. The revision control feature allows content to be updated to a newer version or restored to a previous version. Revision control also tracks any changes made to files by individuals. An additional feature is indexing, search, and retrieval. A CMS system indexes all data within an organization. Individuals can then search for data using keywords, which the CMS system retrieves.
Another feature a CMS may be equipped with is advertising tools. Many come with preset places for users to place banners and advertisements. Others offer more sophisticated types of advertising such as one-to-one marketing. One-to-one marketing is the practice of using the information in a users profile or content viewing practices to supply them with specific and strategic advertisements. For example if the user puts in their profile that their hobbies are skiing and snow boarding then advertisements for snowboard sales might be placed in your banners section.
A Content Management System is not perfect for every user however. With a wider spectrum of content types (audio, video, text, html, pdf, etc.) the content will become increasingly difficult to manage. Also the target audience is a very important factor. A diverse audience that spans multiple countries and languages would also become increasingly difficult to manage. The optimal user of a CMS would be one who needs to cater to an audience who wants a large variety of information about their business or personal endeavors and at the same time would like the form a community about it.
-Jason Witkowski
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