Web design

The Future of Web Content Management Systems

web-contentWeb content management systems are changing again. The hundreds of options for companies and organizations to edit, create, manage and publish content to their own web has shifted again in a decade. It is the second time since it became popular a decade ago. At he start of the last decade, web content management focused on one thing - to make non technical people move their content from their personal computer to their website in an easy non technical way. Before, it used to be experts and IT professionals have the ability to build and push websites over the web. Now even my uncle has built his own car parts and services website without not much help. User interfaces were very critical both for personal and enterprise level. More powerful work flows and other enterprise tools were introduced to be integrated to the WCM software.

In the latter part of the decade another change happened. Social websites and marketing became the primary drivers for WCMS. Many systems then focused on catering to marketing and business solutions to solve marketing challenges. Email management and web analytics were added to focus on targeting, testing and driving more brand value from WCMS. By the end of 2012, the focus has shifted to the delivery of web content. Actual web content management systems are focusing the total online customer experience across all platforms and operating systems, be it mobile devices or traditional desktop and laptops. At present, there are four drivers that are pushing WCMS into the future: mobile, cloud, context and social.

1. Mobile and WCMS. Location based services, device detection and presentation are common tools with the increasing usage of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. It is imperative that the delivery of content should fall into these. With mobile technology, touch will be the primary way users on both sides of the management systems interact with the content itself. It will be a game changing shift between the users and the contributors of content. It also means that editing screens to workflow management will be built upon the touch first approach. New portable and desktop models are incorporating touch as one of their input options between the user and hardware thus the change cannot be overstated and indicates how much change is happening. Touch transformed ways of human to computer interaction; and mobile was the foundation and catalyst for that.

2. The Cloud And WCMS. For enterprise IT, regulation and security, cloud is a big challenge. The traditional built enterprise programs and software relies on infrastructures that are not fit for cloud deployment and it needs to scale horizontally. Scaling is a job that needs to be carefully thought out, planned and executed by an experienced and professional IT personnel. Fast disks, low latency networks, fast CPUs and multiple core databases became the norm. Although there are still some performance, scalability and reliability issues, cloud is shifting the paradigm of the WCMS that was in use for the last 25 years. The time frame of scaling and infrastructure has shortened and became faster. Big data are giving new meaning to delivery and storage making traditional elasticity and scalability irrelevant.

3. Context and WCMS. Context defines a user's web experience. Mobile devices have given users’ freedom of accessing materials whenever, wherever they go. Others want to experience fluid and a hassle free browsing using their mobile device and not click through multiple, hard to read and slow loading web pages. Contents should show correctly on any device. Reducing the effort of a user will build loyalty to the brand service. WCMS is used to create localized sites which are tailored to meet the cultural and unique requirements of users in any country. Enterprise WCMS can also manage hundreds of sites on a single platform providing a centralized operation and efficiency.

4. Social Media And WCMS. Enterprise and organization have realigned their internal communication patterns to deal with the wide range of communication channels such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and such. With this there will be need a new level of support from social content moderation systems to react to any social activities and happenings and turn skeptical users into fans and customers.

Managing and creating the best digital experience across social, web and mobile channels are challenging and exciting at the same time. It will turn them into the central tool of marketers, individuals enterprises and organization. Change and development is the only permanent thing and we are experiencing the paradigm shift and expect a complete overhaul of web content management systems in the near future. Learn more information about the topic by visiting Elcom Blog. For a full list of available CSMs, click here.

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