kabootit[Blog] It's All About Content
Coming soon — a CMS where content is the priority and a web page is just one place where content is displayed:
Some thoughts on how we're approaching content in Sutra CMS:
1. Content stored as key/value pairs
2. Content is a top level entity
3. Content meta data
4. Interactive content
5. Content versioning
6. Content statistics
1. Content stored as key/value pairs
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Every type of content — from a news item to a video to an interactive map to a mini application — is stored the same way.
Benefits:
• describe content any way you like
• data structures can easily change to accommodate new requirements
• one user interface to manage data
• standardized approach to programming a new content type
• no need to manage multitudes of backend tables
2. Content is a top level entity
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Content is stored and managed independent of a website or page.
Benefits:
• content can be copied or linked between pages, websites, eBooks, print, etc
• minimize duplication and reuse
• one source for content management tools such as audits, translation/localization, SEO, branding, custom business workflows, etc
3. Content meta data
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Storing meta data along with your content can enable your content to do more.
Examples:
• adapt content to different contexts with configuration data
• enable custom business workflows such as licensing, the creation process, notifications, etc
4. Interactive content
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Interactive elements can increase the value of content. Commenting, drilling down, user input, sharing, rating, purchasing, searching, etc — these are the drivers of the interwebz 2.0 era.
In Sutra CMS, content blocks can be placed anywhere on a page in any order to create a page. What each content block does is entirely up to what you have programmed for a content type.
Benefits:
• you can create any content type without worrying how it will affect the cms or other content types
• content types can be as powerful as a full-blown application
• great way to combine functionality and data from resources outside of Sutra CMS
PS: I won't list all the advantages of developing custom functionality with Servoy here except to say: server-side Javascript baby....
5. Content versioning
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Sutra CMS allows you to version content now as well as pages.
Benefits:
• update your content in one place and all linked pages will see the latest active version
• roll back to previous versions of content
• compare different versions of content
6. Content statistics
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Where is content displayed? When was it last edited? When was it viewed? How long was it viewed for? What paths lead to the content?
If you are a content analytics geek, Sutra CMS tracks a lot of data about how your content is performing.
Final thoughts
Content is not just about your website: it is about your business. And with Sutra CMS, we're trying to do more than just get your content onto a web page.
If you're interested in content strategy, check out this google group devoted to the subject: