CMA wrap-up 1: College Publisher’s new CMS
October 28th, 2007 by BryanBack home with reliable Internet access and some time to post, so here’s the first of several updates from the CMA/ACP National College Media Convention.
I got a few minutes to go over the new College Publisher content management system with David Studinski, Chris Gillon and a crew of folks from Polopoly.
The short of it: Polopoly is a tremendous upgrade over the current CMS. There are more features to the system than you can shake a stick at, and quite a few things that puts the system at the forefront of CMS’s for media web sites. Among the significant changes I saw:
- No more issue-based paradigm
- Ability to embed videos
- Community tools to allow users to have their own blogs and upload images, etc.
- Ability to change the front page on the fly
- Easier-to-manipulate design modules
- Real-time web stat tracking
From the little bit I got to see, this really will equip colleges with a high-end CMS equivalent to the industry standard. Obviously, it will take some transitioning for those who are on the current system, but it’s a promising development.
The downside to the preview? It’s not likely to be rolled out until summer 2008. That’s understandable, since many publications don’t publish in the summer, or publish less often, so changes can be made easier then. Still, it’s frustrating knowing that such a high-end system is in the works, but we’ll have to wait to experience it in production.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Coming from a non-CP newspaper, that session was my first experience with the CP backend.
I’m really interested in hearing what other folks who attended the session though were the killer features.
October 30th, 2007 at 9:32 am
We talked at length with CP Wednesday night and also attended the special session Friday and left very impressed with the new prototype.
We are a twice-monthly community college paper that has gone to web-first reporting and the new system seems to enhance that concept.
What we liked, in addition to the post above:
- customization of the pages, changing the look of the homepage and section pages by dragging content. No more limiting templates.
- Tabbed sections that we create. Our readers will be able to find special reports/packages, video, audio and photo galleries more easily as we create those tabs.
- The photo upload and slideshow features are a gigantic leap. Looks quite easy to use, we can upload and edit photos in the field without needing additional software. From what CP said, photos can be imported high-res, auto-sized, cropped and even blur faces if needed. And the annoying drop-down captions in the slideshows are history.
- Will support Soundslides with no FTP needed.
- Can drop video on the homepage.
- Blogging component is integrated into the site. No more separate WordPress component. Users can start blogs on the site.
During the presentation, they mentioned that they focused on ease of use, flexibility, features and functionality. Overall, I think they are on target.
We don’t have and can’t find the staff to make even the smallest coding changes. This will be a godsend for smaller colleges, in particular, to be able to create a site that is unique, with the functionality to grow with the learning curve that news organizations are experiencing.
I only wish we were using it now!
Christina Drain
Pensacola Junior College
eCorsair.com