Content Management Systems

Content Management systems are just that – systems that aid management of content.

Content Management Systems

Content Management systems are just that – systems that aid management of content. Content management itself is an old concept, dating back to when publishing first started. Even at that time, publishers were concerned with creation of content, its presentation, storage and retrieval. Today’s Content Management are also concerned with creation and presentation of content, its storage and retrieval. The site you are viewing abcdesigning.com is a driven by a powerful Content Management System.

What’s new is the technology. Today’s Content Management systems are inseparable from the computer and the Internet. The myriad formats that present day computers support are being fully exploited to present content in attractive forms that facilitate presentation and reading. The also allow content to be shared so that it can not only be created with ease but also be reviewed, edited and commented upon.

Consequently, Content Management systems focus on organizing content, which in the present computer-Internet environment can be huge in terms of size and include text, graphics, and multimedia content. Organizing such high volumes of content in a variety of formats would itself warrant a sophisticated system. Added to that, Content Management systems also support collaborative working, making them both complex and highly useful. Abcdesigning has provided many companies with content management systems and are an active reseller of Bitrix Site Manager from www.bitrixsoft.com

Although the above description of Content Management systems is very straightforward and simple, commercially available systems are numerous, and support a variety of features, many of which may be unique to one or the other products being offered. Most Content Management systems, however, perform certain commonly accepted tasks and support standard features, in addition to offering special features that are unique to their particular product. Today, Content Management systems constitute a high volume and growing market. Like software available in other areas, many Content Management systems have also been made available as open source products. These are available free of cost and allow the user – you – to make changes and improvements to the software.

The history of Modern Content Management Systems is interesting. Content Management in its early stages was basically an in-house activity that helped in web publishing. As online magazines and newsletters gained in popularity, the need to systematically manage the content of these was keenly felt. The result was the birth of the early versions of the Content Management system. In the year 1993, a startup company, Vignette that was into Web Publishing technology, was looking for support. It discovered media company CNET, which was at the time using an internally developed web content management and publishing system. CNET not only supported Vignette but invested capital in the company, and gave it the license to further develop and sell the contend management system that it was using for its internal purpose. That’s how Content Management systems came into the market as a distinct product.

Storage and retrieval of text and image based content has long been a concern of organizations engaged not only in publishing but also in other activities, where huge volumes of content needed to be managed. As computers were becoming increasingly indispensable for a variety of tasks, and new applications were being performed with the use of computers, management of text-based content was a highly suitable candidate. As far back as in 1983, an IBM group company had developed a system for precisely this purpose. As other companies entered the market, workflow began to be integrated into these systems, making them collaborative. From storage and retrieval of large volumes of text based content, the Internet era graduated these systems into full-fledged content management systems that could handle more data types and had additional features.

Current Content Management system in the market support a variety of functions that include the above, in addition to a lot of new features. Today’s Content Management Systems support document management, workflow management, interfaces to facilitate editing of document and content, and tools to increase productivity. Document management systems facilitate the creation, revision, and storage and retrieval of documents, adding ease of operation and power to the process. Workflow systems allow collaboration and flow of documents from one person to the other. Productivity is enhanced in Content Management systems in a variety of ways, such as support for creation and storage of templates that can be used for subsequent work, and WYSIWYG ( What You See Is What You Get) interfaces for editing that minimize the need for revision. All these come with an affordable price tag in current Content Management systems.