randomly ever after | content management disasters -
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Building and maintaining a large-scale media site that performs quickly, reliably and takes advantage of the Web has turned into big business for a group of software companies (and associated integrators and consultants) that build large, custom (''packaged'') applications, often atop popular database systems, intended to bring order to an unruly process.
Some media sites entered these waters modestly -- the initial version of forbes.com was powered by NetObjects Fusion, a single-user desktop package -- but from 1996 on many large, high-traffic media sites have chosen large-scale systems, complete with application servers, that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. CNet spun off its in-house content-management program to create Vignette, which quickly gained a high-profile media client in the Chicago Tribune for its StoryServer (a product now called V/5). (Inside also has been a client of Vignette.) FutureTense developed a comparable system customized for media sites and found its flagship customer in the Washington Post. If Vignette's current market cap, just shy of $10 billion despite its stock being half off its high, is any indication, this is a good business to be in.
It's so attractive because media Web sites (and others) need what these complex, high-end products claim to offer: multi-user systems that pull the elements of Web pages out of databases and provide a workflow system that lets programmers, designers and editors see where in the production process any element resides.
Yet the impressive client list that made these companies is, slowly, defecting. Tribune Interactive, which runs chicagotribune.com, is in the process of moving off Vignette to a home-grown platform, as is CNet itself. Similarly, washingtonpost.com is said to be walking away from a reported seven-figure investment in customizing the FutureTense product (now owned by OpenMarket) in favor of a system its employees and contractors are building. ''We couldn't wait for them to fix all the problems anymore,'' says one person familiar with the washingtonpost.com decision to build its own system. ''There are profound holes in their system, like workflow, which is the most important part of a content-management system. I mean, come on already.''
The head of product development at one New York-based media site who has supervised development on both homegrown and packaged systems says: ''These programs are huge, expensive and about as useless and clumsy as you can imagine. Never again, I promise you.''
According to one chicagotribune.com editor, ''We used the official Vignette system in their custom application and it was just terrible. Then our staff put a huge amount of effort into customizing it so it would work the way we needed it to, right inside a Web browser. That worked much better. Now they're extending that effort, just not with StoryServer underneath it.''
If people are abandoning these platforms, why is Vignette worth nearly $10 billion? Perhaps, as one media-company technical manager explains, it's because ''it takes a long time to convince people that all the marketing they've heard is crap. A lot of these executives who don't know much about technology, don't know what you mean when you tell them that proprietary templating languages are dead or something like that. When it comes to understanding these systems, a lot of them are asleep.''
Want an example? ''We're extremely committed to the Vignette platform,'' says an Internet CEO to me a year ago who had recently signed a large six-figure check for the system. ''What does the Vignette platform do?'' I asked him. After an uncomfortable 10 seconds, he moved his hands in circles and said, ''You know, puts the stuff up.''
So what are the options for a large media site that wants the flexibility these systems promise but not the headaches? Since the packaged systems work with content that has been entered into structured databases like those from IBM, Oracle and Sybase, the data can be moved to a new system. Some large sites have discovered that the Unix file system is a cranky beast, but it's not such a bad way to organize files. Using HTML templates or server-side includes (which allow you to use the same pieces of HTML in multiple Web pages), sites can get some subset of the features of commercial publishing systems.
For higher-level issues like workflow, some are turning to next-generation solutions like Allaire's Spectra, which, although relatively young, seem to have learned from the more blatant drawbacks in their predecessors, and Adobe's InCopy system for letting editorial and design pros work quickly without bumping into one another too frequently. Some are considering more frankly customized-from-the-start solutions like the ArsDigita Community System, which has the added cachet of being open source and more easily tweaked without having to wait for the supposed experts from the vendor to show up.
In the long run, it's likely that more and more media sites will build (or contract out and supervise) their own solutions, built around standards like Java Server Pages that aren't dependent on one company for development and support. Since all the packaged systems need so much customization, you might as well build your system in your own idiosyncratic image from the start. It's where you're going to end up anyway. } {Jimmy Guterman} none {'These programs are huge, expensive, and about as useless and clumsy as you can imagine,' says a New York Net executive. 'Never again, I promise you.'} {Wednesday, July 05 09:56 a.m.} 4 7 10102 N none 1026}} schema = HEADLINE SMALL_SUBHEADLINE BODY BYLINE1 BYLINE2 PULLQUOTE STUFF FK_SUBPODS_ID_AR FK_POD_ID_AR FK_SOURCE_ID_AR FREE SOURCE_DESC FK_ARTICLE_TYPE_ID_AR