What is a CMS or Content Management System
A content management system (CMS) is a computer application used to manage the content of a Web site from a central interface.
CMSs are often used to run websites containing blogs, news, and shopping and many corporate and marketing websites use CMSs. CMSs typically aim to avoid the need for hand coding, but may support it for specific elements or entire pages. Managing content refers to creating, editing, archiving, publishing, collaborating on, reporting, distributing website content, data and information.
History of CMS
CMSs have been available since the 1990s, and has seen three clear phases of development.
90s - 2000 marked by the DotCom crash
2000 - 2013
2013 to present
The 90s
Early CMS applications written by web design agencies rather than software companies and every agency had their own platform. An example of this is 'Roxen' released in 1994 by swedish developers Roxen Internet Software . The main features were a very structured development environment and you had to use tags and templates as WYSIWYG text editing was yet to be developed. The learning curve was steep and if you did not know HTML you probably weren’t going to edit your site.
A content management system (CMS) is a computer application used to manage the content of a Web site from a central interface.
CMSs are often used to run websites containing blogs, news, and shopping and many corporate and marketing websites use CMSs. CMSs typically aim to avoid the need for hand coding, but may support it for specific elements or entire pages. Managing content refers to creating, editing, archiving, publishing, collaborating on, reporting, distributing website content, data and information.
History of CMS
CMSs have been available since the 1990s, and has seen three clear phases of development.
90s - 2000 marked by the DotCom crash
2000 - 2013
2013 to present
The 90s
Early CMS applications written by web design agencies rather than software companies and every agency had their own platform. An example of this is 'Roxen' released in 1994 by swedish developers Roxen Internet Software . The main features were a very structured development environment and you had to use tags and templates as WYSIWYG text editing was yet to be developed. The learning curve was steep and if you did not know HTML you probably weren’t going to edit your site.
ABOVE: Roven CMS (1994)
With the dot.com crash of March 10, 2000 came a refocus as most marketing agencies back from coding development and focused on design.
Vern Imrich said “Back in the late 90s the concept was too undefined - part app dev, part portal and tons of “Web 1.0” bloat, you name it, you could build it!”
CMS in the noughties
The second wave of CMS platforms were developed by specialist software houses such as RedDot, DotNetNuke and Mambo(now Joomla). Key features which were built in included WYSIWYG text editing, search engine optimisation, improved HTML and graphical user interfaces that allowed web development with minimal coding and what is now the standards for content (image,file,page,database and text) management.
With the dot.com crash of March 10, 2000 came a refocus as most marketing agencies back from coding development and focused on design.
Vern Imrich said “Back in the late 90s the concept was too undefined - part app dev, part portal and tons of “Web 1.0” bloat, you name it, you could build it!”
CMS in the noughties
The second wave of CMS platforms were developed by specialist software houses such as RedDot, DotNetNuke and Mambo(now Joomla). Key features which were built in included WYSIWYG text editing, search engine optimisation, improved HTML and graphical user interfaces that allowed web development with minimal coding and what is now the standards for content (image,file,page,database and text) management.
ABOVE: DotNetNuke
These early second wave platforms, often cost thousands of dollars in fees to use, this caused an open source movement to be established which was characterised by paid and free application development. The open-source movement grew as skilled coders and designers were brought together by agencies creating open source applications such as Wordpress, Blogspot and Tumblr. These applications allowed users with little or no programming knowledge to easly create websites.
These early second wave platforms, often cost thousands of dollars in fees to use, this caused an open source movement to be established which was characterised by paid and free application development. The open-source movement grew as skilled coders and designers were brought together by agencies creating open source applications such as Wordpress, Blogspot and Tumblr. These applications allowed users with little or no programming knowledge to easly create websites.
As of 2014 the CMS industry split into enterprise document management (EDMS) and web content management (WCMS) which itself is further divided into free, open-source and paid-for solutions. A large number of Content management systems are available.Each targeting broadly at enterprise, mid-sized companies, small business and private use. It is important to not that while in the 90's it was common for large corporations to develop their own content management systems it is the current trend for them to outsource for applications.
NEXTGEN content management systems
The lastest change in CMS development is based on an individuals ability to code versus their skill to design. This rift has been brought about by some well publicised hacks on open-source platforms that had been commercially applied. 'Black hat Hackers' are now disabling opensource CMS sites and inserting malware into ecommerce platforms to harvest credit card details. The Youtube, Ebay and Facebook being the most publicised attacks.
The CMS industry has become increasingly designer led with a move away from coders which has enabled the new third generation of web CMS tools to be developed.What previously had to be done by a programmer server-side with back-end code can now be achieved entirely with front end client side applications. The key features of third generation CMS are:
• a hosted platform
• resold exclusively by design agencies or affiliates
• integration with CRM, database, e-commerce, email as modules not plug-ins
• Modular development so there’s minimal custom coding for integration
• SaaS pricing model including reseller/affiliate earnings
Noteable applications in this new generation of CMS are Contegro, Basekit and CushyCMS with Adobes Business Catalyst, currently the market leader as of 2015 (BELOW).
Mikal Ali (a prominent Interactive designer) says “Times "are-a-changing", web development includes a lot more these days not just open source communities where "you" can do cool stuff no one else can. CMSs now allow the "new web developer" to actually help the client make money with a few very good integrated tools that seem to get better all the time.”