If you’re struggling to understand content management systems (CMS), here’s a good discussion of the basics.
It’s an interview by Ahmad Permessur of HotScripts.com (a resource for programmers) with Tony Byrne, founder of CMS Watch. Among other things, Byrne defines a CMS, describes why a site might need one, and discusses how to choose one.
Today we’re adding a new tool to this blog–see the top of the right side bar. [Update: This new tool has since been removed.] It’s a "Swicki," a particularly interesting example of the new breed of customizable search engines, which we wrote about last week here.
We’ve customized this search engine to zero in on publishing-related sites that we consider particularly useful and on topics in the field that we believe are hot. That makes it especially suited to you, the audience that reads this blog.
But this is a collaborative search engine, which is why it sounds like "wiki". As you use it, you will be "training" it to serve you better. Part of the training is passive: The Swicki pays attention to which search results you click on. But you also can actively register your likes and dislikes by clicking on the various icons that appear to the right of each result.
And this search engine has a "buzz cloud" showing the most popular terms searched by the community of our blog readers. Click on the bigger labels to see results of the more popular searches. We’re tapping the wisdom of our specialized crowd here; it doesn’t get more Web 2.0 than that.
We hope you find this specialized Swicki so useful that it brings you back to our blog on a regular basis. And we hope that it prompts you to create one to serve your own audience.
It’s often tough for print publishers and editors to make the mental, strategic, and operational shifts that lead to a compelling presence on the Web. Shovelware, the unimaginative dumping of static magazine or newspaper content online, is unfortunately still the default mode for many publication-related sites.
Not so for the Bakersfield Californian, according to Mack Reed’s report for the Online Journalism Review. The newspaper’s Web extension, Bakersfield.com, is bristling with blogs, podcasts, video, and even online publishing tools that it is selling to other publications.
Sites that enable users to create, collaborate on, and share contributions are among the top 10 fastest growing destinations on the Internet, reports Nielsen/NetRatings. They include:
Nielsen’s
press release has more details (a PDF document).
The message for editors and publishers: If you want to grow your
audience, find ways to build social computing activities into your site.
This is a “Swicki.”
What’s a Swicki? It’s an intriguing new variation on the idea of customizable search engines. Before we get to the special wrinkle in Swickis, a word about why publishers should care about customizable search.
Nearly every publisher operates in a narrow niche–covering wine, for example, or travel, or investing, or even dental plans. Publishers have insider knowledge about what topics interest their particular audiences and which Web-based sources are the most authoritative and interesting in their fields. If you could tailor a search engine to comb through only those sites that you specify, you would have a powerful tool to serve the specialized needs of your audience.
Well, there are search engines that you can tailor to your niche in this way. They’re free, as long as you can live with some sponsored text ads on the results page. And you can build them right into your site.
One of the simplest versions of these tools is Rollyo (“roll your own” search engine). Yahoo this week unveiled a slightly more tweak-able tool at its Search Builder sub-site. Their motto: “Build a search engine that your customers can’t find anywhere else.”
Swickis (from San Francisco-based Eurekster.com) up the ante in the custom search engine arms race by adding features that tap the “wisdom of the crowd” and take advantage of other Web 2.0-ish techniques. Users of a Swicki can tag results with their own labels. This enables the Swicki to assemble an archive of categorized searches and to generate a “buzz cloud” of popular results accessible to the entire “crowd.”
Swickis also “learn,” refining their search strategies in reaction to
both active directions from the engine’s creator and passive directions
based on user behavior. As the Swicki site puts it, “Swickis harness
the collective power of your community.”
That’s a critical point for publishers–this is your crowd. Unlike
the mass audience of the Web at large, your users have real expertise
in your niche. So knowing what is popular among their peers is of great value
to individual members of your audience. (The generic search engines and the people who run
them just don’t know your “vertical space” the way you and your users do.)
Any one of these tools offers a relatively easy way to add a branded, “sticky” element to your site. Beyond search, though, smart publishers should think about applying this local customization strategy wherever possible. In other words, identify techniques that work well on the Web at large and adapt them vertically to capitalize on your unique niche.
Several book publishers are adopting Web-savvy marketing strategies, the N.Y. Times reports.
Harper Collins is introducing a “Browse Inside” function on its Web site. Similar to programs offered by Amazon.com and Google, Browse Inside permits visitors to see the first three pages of most chapters. (Read the press release.)
And large publishers including Random House, Workman, and Scholastic are posting video “trailers” to promote books on their own sites as well as on “social video” gathering spots such as YouTube and Yahoo.
We help editors and publishers—both in print and online—solve their editorial dilemmas. Some of our clients wrestle with repositioning their magazines for changing audiences. Others struggle with creating a compelling online identity that’s different from that of the parent publication. And still others want to grab some of the Web 2.0 momentum.
So we always keep an eye out for developments, resources, and strategies that can help them. That’s what this blog will cover. We’re especially interested in the intersection of print and Web: the implications of one for the other and how to create and sustain successful magazines, newsletters, and newspapers in an Internet-dominated world.
Please join the conversation. Add your comments and let us know what you think.
Everything needs a little sprucing up now and then—your wardrobe, your garage, your magazine. It’s easy to tell when your closet needs an update (nobody wears those shoulder pads anymore!) or your garage begs for a re-org (can’t get the car past the discarded exercise equipment?). But how do you know when your magazine needs an editorial overhaul? Here are six clear signals:
We’ll be exploring “what to do?” in detail during our presentation on editorial repositioning at the Western Publications Association conference on April 20, 2006.
Here’s a handy way to get your magazine team thinking and talking about the competition: Make
a map.
In the sample below, we’ve mapped a bunch of magazines aimed at household do-it-yourselfers. The axes rate primary readers on two key characteristics: how old they are and how well off they are. (The positions we’ve chosen for Family Handyman, This Old House, ReadyMade, and the others are for demonstration purposes; they are not the result of careful analysis.)
At a glance, this sample map tells us, among other things, that there are three magazines in the field targeting the more affluent readers, and two that cater to the other end of the spectrum. The affluent-and-older quadrant is a bit more crowded than the younger-and-affluent zone.
Of course, there are many other reader traits that could be used to locate and define each magazine within this competitive set, including: Urban / Suburban, Male / Female, Hands-On-Type / Dreamer, and Beginner / Expert. The more characteristics you map, the more revealing information you turn up about your competitors and about your own magazine. You’ll also generate lots of questions to investigate and discuss. For instance:
This is an important exercise for anyone hoping to launch a new magazine and anyone striving to
keep an existing publication successful in a competitive field (and who doesn’t have
competitors?). It also makes an entertaining game for retreats and strategy sessions: Participants
take turns placing their publication and its challengers on the map—and analyzing the
implications.
Call it “Pin the Tail on the Competition.”
Afar was one of the fastest-growing magazines in the Audit Bureau of Circulations’ 2011 report. Learn how we helped launch Afar.
