Temple News goes to WordPress MU
February 6th, 2008 by Bryan 
Sean Blanda writes a comprehensive post about the switch of the Temple News from College Publisher to WordPress MU. He explains why they did it and what kind of hiccups took place along the way. Check it out.
One thing this information does is provide backup for one of my assertions about why people might not want to set up their own in-house web presence. It takes a lot of work and technical skill to make a content management system work the way you want it to. And that time and technical skill aren’t always available, not to mention the funds to have it done for you.
February 6th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
The Nevada Sagebrush (of the University of Nevada, Reno) switch to WPMU at the beginning of Fall 2007. We had had a couple systems beforehand (CollegePublisher and a custom Ruby powered system) before that.
Wordpress definitely takes getting used to, especially when crafting it to handle newspaper content.
February 6th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
“It takes a lot of work and technical skill to make a content management system work the way you want it to. And that time and technical skill aren’t always available, not to mention the funds to have it done for you.”
Indeed, but help is always out there. Statenews.com has been self-publishing since 1996 along with a number of others. In most cases help is just an email away.
February 6th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Mike, that’s true, and a good point.
But the type of operation Sean describes is going to take a lot more than an e-mail to help with. I’m not saying there aren’t more people who could afford to go “solo,” but there are also a lot of small to medium sized schools who already have full plates without throwing that headache on top of what they’re already dealing with.