“WordPress as a CMS” Thrives For 50+ Sites (video)
By Dave Moyer, posted Jan 20 2010 at 11:00 am | No Comments »
We here at WordCast constantly write that the WordPress platform already is, in itself, a powerful content management system. It manages your content in an extremely effective way that can work with just about any sort of website, and we think that fits the bill for it to bear the CMS label.
Despite this, the topic of “WordPress as a CMS” seems to constantly remain in users’ minds when picking a system to run their site. Though WordPress manages your site’s content, lots of people seem to want the traditional layout and management paradigms of Joomla, Drupal, or other “original” CMS platforms in order to consider WordPress in the same vein.
WNET (PBS of New York City) recently took on quite an ambitious project. They aimed to utilize WordPress MU (currently the only way to manage multiple websites from one WordPress installation, though this will change in WordPress.org version 3.0) to run their entire network of sites, and it worked extremely well. According to the WordPress Publisher blog:
Using WordPress MU’s built-in features along with custom themes and plugins such as WPDB Profiling, they made it easier and much cheaper for WNET.ORG to roll out multiple sites that provide a great user experience as well as editorial and creative flexibility. Before the new CMS, WNET.ORG could only launch 1-2 sites per month. Now, they have the capability of rolling out 5-10 sites per month for a fraction of the cost.
The sites look good, as you can see from the screenshot above, and the project’s leads, Dan Goldman and Jamie Trowbridge, took the effort to explain what makes them tick in a presentation on the project at the recent WordCamp NYC:
WordPress as a CMS Case Study: WNET.org [WordPress Publisher Blog]