Social Software Explored

I got into a very interesting conversation with someone yesterday (I so wanted to write this last night but…) regarding the way WordPress and CommonSpot manage links.  I have been using WordPress for my blog for over a year now and I have to say that one of the most annoying things in WordPress is linking.  I am certainly not in the position of managing many pieces of content but I can say I much prefer the link management process in CommonSpot.

The Argument

(liberally paraphrased)

Content owners should not care that the link is managed - or to put this in context - if I need to link from one page in the CMS to another I should simply open the page I want to link to - copy the URL and paste it into my content.  The content management system should take the link and manage it automatically (e.g. perform normal link management duties).

Ignoring the technical difficulties of taking a web URL and mapping it back to a relational database link storage facility, lets dissect the process of finding a link:

1.) I need to know where I want to link to
2.) I need to find the link
3.) I need to insert that link

Since the web/usability and the like are interested in “clicks” here is how I would link to an existing post in WordPress vs. linking to an existing page in CommonSpot.

WordPress

1.) Open a new browser tab and go to the home page of my blog
2.) Enter text into the Search field and click “Search”
3.) Locate the post and click the post URL
4.) Copy the content of the URL into my clipboard
5.) Go back to my post
6.) Highlight the text I want and then click the “link” indicator
7.) Paste the content into the URL field - choose my options
8.) Click finish

CMS

1.) Highlight the content I want to link and click the “link” icon
2.) Choose “Link to existing page”
3.) Click Next
4.) Click Page Finder
5.) Choose my criteria and click Search
6.) Click the link that I want
7.) Click finish on the link dialog

(To be honest I had no idea which was going to have the most clicks before I started this)

My main argument is that the link finding process in WordPress seems less intuitive and more complicated then that tools provided by CommonSpot.  This assuming that WordPress had some of the same Link Management capabilities as CS then you would be left with this question:

Would users really like an interface similar to WordPress for locating links or is the abstract link finder in CommonSpot better?

Uncategorized Blogging, CommonSpot, Content Management, WordPress

Blogging for money may be a dangerous use of resources but what about ‘trolling’ for money.  Today I came across this awesome blog post by Jeremiah Owyang (Senior Analyst for Forrestor) - someone that I follow on Twitter and a blog that I enjoy reading.

The post (entitles CMS Horror Stories, and Your Soon-To-Be ‘Legacy’ Community Platform) is a real good read for anyone who is in the midst of a CMS selection.  In his post, Jeremiah asks to very key questions:

1) I’d love to hear from you about your CMS horror stories, feel free to leave a comment below, go ahead, vent away.

2) Are you deploying a community platform for your web strategy at your company? What are you doing to plan for the long term 5+ years impacts of this system in regards to the rest of the enterprise web strategy?

I work at PaperThin (makers of the CommonSpot Content Server) and I have to say that Jeremiah opened my eyes with this post to an amazing sales opportunity.  One that I am sure smart people are deploying (and we will be shortly as well) - and that is ‘Blog Trolling’.  A quick search on Technorati for CMS returns over 22K results.  Each search result a Blog with some information about Content Management Systems.

One of the most difficult thing to do in the world of sales is to find your target market.  What better way to find a customer interested in a CMS then on a blog post (an open communication channel) that is discussing pains or issues with their current CMS.  In solution selling this would give us the opportunity to “Recognize the pain” - for most of the people who post comments on Jeremiah’s post they are admitting their pain publicly.

Best thing about comments on a blog - since most people are constantly trying to sell their blog to readers of other blogs, they include the link in their comments (just click on the persons name).  Can’t fault a sales person from e-mailing or calling (most blogs extend contact information) you and saying:

“Hey, saw here that you were having difficulty with your current CMS and that you feel like it is ‘inflexible’.  Give me a half hour and I will show you how flexible our application is …”

In all honesty, when you post comments on a blog you are openly asking someone to contact you.  You are begging for it.

Note: More on his second question (about your Community Platform) a bit later.

Uncategorized Blogging, Blogs, CMS, CommonSpot, Content Management, Jeremiah Owyang