The foundation of the self-publishing revolution

IDEA N^o 31

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

A content management system (CMS) allows the centralized creation, editing and publishing of web pages. The introduction of CMS allowed non-technical people, with little or no knowledge of HTML, to update and maintain websites.

In a typical CMS, page content and metadata are stored in a database. This is known as the data layer. A presentation layer, usually consisting of a series of templates, is used to display the data. The logic that manipulates the data and determines how it is displayed is known as the business layer. The presentation and business layer are usually fixed. The CMS allows users to add content in the data layer.

Administration is typically done through a browser-based interface. With varied levels of access, different users can manage different pages and different bits of functionality. A web developer will usually set up and add pages, which are then maintained by non-technical editors. A CMS can also incorporate workflow management tools. For example, an editor may create a page and a proofreader then check it before it is published by the website administrator.

Content management systems can also act as platforms for collaboration, with pages created by multiple authors. Version control means editors can revert to previous iterations when required.

Content management systems emerged in the mid-90s. One of the early platforms was StoryServer, built by a company called Vignette; it was a combination of Vignette’s own product, StoryBuilder, and a rival CMS called PRISM. StoryServer and other CMS’s offered an alternative to conventional page-by-page web development. They signalled a maturing of the Web, allowing non-technical people to manage websites.

However, this freedom came at a cost. Enterprise CMSs were extremely expensive. Smaller businesses, design agencies and independent software companies started creating their own open-source CMSs based on the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) framework. One of these companies was UserLand, the company that gave us the Blog. It distributed its Frontier software as shareware, allowing users to ‘taste the power of large-scale database publishing with free software’.

Open-source CMSs, such as Joomla and Drupal, now dominate the market. Blogging platforms, such as WordPress, have adopted much of their functionality and today power many websites.

Content management systems laid the foundations of the self-publishing revolution. They allowed anyone with a PC and an internet connection to publish a website. Without them, the Web would be the sole domain of people who know how to code – a far cry from the universal space envisaged by Tim Berners-Lee.■

Content management systems are used to manage the web-publishing process as well as to upload and edit content.