Getting a Handle on Content Management

There are almost as many types of Web sites as there are web masters. Some serve simply as online business cards, a cyber-billboard that displays a name--sometimes its an individual with a message to deliver, sometimes a business with services to sell--and contact information.

More ambitious sites might contain several pages that highlight product. Still more ambitious sites offer visitors more information: corporate information, press releases and news, resource materials, links to other related sites and a way to interact with the site to request more information, request a quote or order a product or service. The most ambitious may offer an array of information, transaction and feedback opportunities, application interfaces, downloadable resources (e.g., audio/video clips), interactive resources (e.g. tutorials and discussion forums) and member-only resources.

As the site gets more complex, the content more voluminous and differentiated, the task of managing content efficiently becomes ever more important. To ensure that content meet customers' needs and keeps customers coming back, it must remain dynamic, not only responsive, but also one step ahead of the customer expectation curve. Even essentially static content must remain current and valid. Web site globalization only complicates that task further; the dynamism of the medium makes effective globalization a constant challenge.

In an article published by in the April 2000 issue of Language International, Rose Lockwood, director of e-business research at Berlitz GlobalNET, uses a political analogy to describe three different approaches to Web content management: monarchist, anarchist and federalist. The monarchist is a strict centralized approach to content management. Chaotic decentralization typifies the anarchist approach. Lockwood writes that both the monarchist and anarchist approaches "should eventually evolve into a federalist or subsidiary solution." The federalist approach or GRL (global, regional, local), as described by Lockwood, will demand equally evolved workflow processes and tools to manage highly responsive, globalized content.

A Microsoft Enterpise Services White Paper, by Jim Reynolds and Arminder Kaur, describes the content management process--minus the multilingual element--in detail. The authors begin by listing the key issues involved in the process followed by a section that explains why content management is important.

Each Web site is unique, however, there are some constants that permit Reynolds and Kaur to identify four distinct models or "scenarios:" News site, technical support, business-to-commerce (B2C) and application development. Multiple factors differentiate the scenarios. The news site's objective is to provide up-to-the-minute multimedia content. Web site news delivery relies on update speed and accuracy just as the more conventional media of television and radio do. The authoring/editing/testing/publishing cycle for a technical support site is less demanding than a news delivery site. Both types require a process for moving content to a less prominent position on the site when its newsworthiness diminishes, archiving and finally removing irrelevant or out-dated content.

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