Updated Tools of the Trade Part 2
Posted on | September 13, 2009 | No Comments
Reinforcing that we don’t want to design websites, we want to implement websites to support our content distribution strategies with minimal configuration, customization, and deployment timelines. Aside from some specialty applications like event calendars, FAQs and photo galleries, we’re building around a few basic engines. The engine choices for a particular site are driven by a few brief questions:
- What is the purpose of the site?
- What is the target audience?
- In the case of sites built to support fiction projects:
- What real world component is the site supposed to emulate (a business, a media outlet)
- How dynamic will the site’s content be?
- Will the site’s content be required to follow or synch to a specific timeline?
- Will the site require user registration?
- Will parts of the site be restricted to specific users or user groups?
- Will the site have an ecommerce connection?
- Does the site have any specific requirements for look and feel?
Once these questions are answered, we apply them to a grid and drill-down process to determine the technology.
The first decision point is among the following high-level application types. This top level decision is based primarily on type and volume of content,
- Content Management System
- Blog Engine
- Forum Engine
- Social Networking Engine
- Third party website
- Other
The second decision point is the our defined emulation model (for fiction project websites only):
- Will this site emulate a business?
- Will we have to provide pseudo-transaction capabilities?
- Will we need to be interactive with visitors
- Do we need to closely emulate a REAL business site in look or feel?
- Will this site emulate an organization (e.g. political party, lobbying organization, etc.)?
- Will we need to have special types of subscriptions beyond RSS?
- Do we need to take extra care regarding posting (since many loose cannons and nutcases play in the political blog realm)
- Do we need to emulate a real organization for parody?
- Will this site emulate a place?
- Will the site emulate a person?
In the current state, these are the engines we’ve chosen:
Joomla! content managment:
- Our company website
- Our company technical division website
- Two fictitious newspapers
- One fictitious broadcast network
- One fictitious radio station
- One fictitious magazine
- One eMagazine
- One RSS collection site (parody government intelligence agency)
- Two branded author sites
- Two rock band sites
- A web presence workshop tutorial site
- Owners personal website
- Fictitious religious organization
- Fictitious city web site
- A fictitious large retailer
- A writer who is a dog
WordPress:
- This blog.
- Two branded author blogs
- Three music-related blogs
- One political blog
- One fictitious author blog (tutorial)
- Fictitious airline
- Branded author website
- Fictitious rock band
- Humor blog
b2Evolution:
- A blogging services website
- An internet fiction project core site
bbPress:
- prototype forum
BuddyPress
- Prototype social network for writers
Concrete5:
- Fictitious food company
Coppermine Gallery:
- Three site related galleries
- On fictitious art gallery
Drupal:
- Fictitious author tutorial site.
Moodle:
- Our online education site
PHPbb 3:
- Fictitious author tutorial site
- Tutorial interactive site
SMF (Simple Machines Forum):
- Our forum prototype (currently not in use)
Blogger:
- Fictitious bank PR blog
- Satirical history blog
- Junk mail rants blog
- Parody financial dictionary
- Fictitious fiction book site blog
- Fictitious author tutorial blog
We also have current multiple presences on:
- Live Journal
- MySpace
- Squidoo
Nearly a dozen more sites are currently in design stages.
Tags: b2evolution > concrete5 > content distribution > coppermine > drupal > joomla > moodle > strategy > website design > wordpress
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