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Pacemaker CMS stats

November 2, 2010 in Content Management Systems, contests, Media Companies - College Related, Websites

I like following the CMS (Content Management System) changes in college media, and keeping track of who’s using what, so here’s some CMS trivia related to the ACP Online Pacemaker winners, announced this past weekend in Louisville.

Among the winners, CMS used:

*The College Heights Herald recently moved to TownNews, but their site was on WordPress when they were judged, so they count as a WordPress site for statistical purposes.

Other notes: Two of the Drupal sites are from the same college news organization (the Daily Illini and the217.com), and both of Swarthmore’s winners were homegrown, but different organizations. The HTML hand-coded site was from Spokane Falls Community College.

I would encourage people not to read too much into the numbers. Good journalism is not CMS-dependent, as I’ve said before.

Below the fold is a screen shot with the CMS noted above each site. I added the CMS name – it’s not on the ACP web site.

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Ch-ch-changes happen over the summer for college news web sites

August 27, 2009 in College Publisher, Websites, Wordpress

Quite a few college publications made upgrades to their web sites over the summer. As I am able, I’ll post a link to sites with new designs or new backend systems. If your site has undergone a makeover, drop a line in the comments or via e-mail to scmurley-at-gmail.com, and I’ll post something as I hear.

Also, we’re always looking for additional voices to share their experiences about innovation. If you would like to write about what’s going on at your school (adviser or student journalist), let me know and we’ll talk. It’s a great way to connect with a larger community, and a chance to get your name out before your peers and industry leaders. (/end shameless promotion)

The Arbiter at Boise State switched from College Publisher to a WordPress installation to start the school year.

The Daily Tar Heel also moved to their own hosted site, using a custom-built version of Drupal. The Tar Heel had a tragic breaking news story – afraternity president was shot and killed by police – on the first day of classes, which tested their new web site.

The Arizona Daily Wildcat didn’t switch platforms – staying with College Publisher – but they did redesign their site and work on their news flow. Web Director Bryan Roy said, “we’ve completely overhauled and relaunched DailyWildcat.com this semester. Not only is it a fresh look with lots of extra features, we’ve also restructured our newsroom workflow. It was certainly a lot more overwhelming than originally anticipated (getting ads and business staffs on the same page) but obviously it’s a challenge all college newspapers are trying to solve.”

More to come …


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