BLOG TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH - … Blogging Technologies ... Open source self-hosted software. ... The latest versions come with automatic update options

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BLOG TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH Dan Kass

9/11/2014 Web Strategy


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Available Blogging Technologies

Choosing a Blog Platform for Upromise

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& 100 more!


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Top Blogging Technologies

▶  WordPress.org: Open source self-hosted software. WordPress blog is used by 11 of the top 20 blogs worldwide. WordPress was used by more than 22.0% of the top 10 million websites as of August 2013.[1] WordPress is the most popular blogging system in use on the Web,[2] at more than 60 million websites.[3] Has over 30,000 plugins. 60% of CMS use. Recommended by our SEO company. (Has integration with Contently)

▶  WordPress.com: This is a free hosted option good for personal or family use. Limited design options, limited plug-ins, limited storage. Pay options can work around some issues but not designed as a corporate blogging solution.

▶  Blogger: Owned by Google, this tool is popular because it is easy to setup. It ranks in search results but has very little customization options. Not a good corporate blogging solution.

▶  SquareSpace: This is a great option for small businesses who want to set up a small ecommerce blog. They offer proven hosting for small scale low cost ecommerce. There are limited expansion and customization options. It’s not a good choice for corporate blogging.

▶  Moveable Type: Costs either $595 or $1195 depending on # of users. Most reviewers say is a very similar experience to the free version of WordPress except that it allows for multiple blogs without a plugin. This is built on Perl and could be a good option for companies who want to integrate with an Oracle database. It has flipped from open source to non-open source twice in 10 years. It’s currently not.

▶  [1]"Usage Statistics and Market Share of Content Management Systems for Websites". W3Techs. August 2013. Retrieved August 2013.

▶  [2]"CMS Usage Statistics". BuiltWith. Retrieved 2013-08-01. ▶  [3]^ Coalo, J.J (5 September 2012).

"With 60 Million Websites, WordPress Rules The Web. So Where's The Money?". Forbes.


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Top Blogging Technologies

▶  Joomla: Joomla is the second most popular CMS with 8% of the market. One reviewer characterized it as a great choice if you like ugly, animated websites. Using this software as a blog platform makes the most sense if the whole website is built on this CMS.

▶  Drupal: Drupal is the second most popular CMS with 5% of the market. Like Joomla, using this software as a blog platform makes the most sense if the whole website is built on this CMS.

▶  TypePad: One of the early hosted blogging platforms where you pay a small fee for hosting and service. It’s very easy to use and allows a custom URL. It has very limited customization and no true data backup options with FTP. Not considered a good blogging for SEO and not a good corporate blogging option.

▶  Tumblr: Although this is the only other blog platform that integrates with Contently it is best used for microblogging and for curating related photos of your favorite topic this is not a business blogging platform.

▶  LiveJournal: Does not appear to allow custom URL. A poor choice for a blog.

▶  Weebly: Might be good for photographers or someone who needs a brochure style site.


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Platform Highlights Conclusions

HooteSuite HooteSuite is not a blogging platform. It’s a social media management system. dashboard, and supports social network integrations for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, WordPress, etc.

Not a blogging platform but a great tool for Sallie Mae to consider using for social media management

Tumblr Tumblr is not a full featured blogging platform. It is a micro-blogging platform. It’s more like Twitter than it is a full featured blog.

This micro-blogging platform is not adequate for our requirements

WordPress WordPress is considered the best in class blogging platform. It is a full featured blogging platform with 30 thousand plugins. It is in use on more than 60 million websites.

Over the years WordPress has proven to be vulnerable to security issues. Most issues come about due to the lack of admin version updating and plugins. The latest versions come with automatic update options.

From a feature and functionality perspective, Wordpress is a great choice for SM. Unfortunately there are 2 obstacles involved with using this platform. The first is the My SQL database requirement on our IIS Microsoft servers and the second is the security risk.

The My SQL requirement has been solved with a commonly used code fix from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/web/platform/phponwindows.aspx

The security issues can mitigated by engaging a Wordpress specific cloud hosting service.

Platforms That Connect to Contently

Web Strategy

Note from SME: “…from a pure SEO perspective, nothing beats WP - one of the best SEO plugins available (that covers nearly every SEO element from meta data to xml Sitemaps) is WordPress SEO by Yoast.”


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WordPress Dedicated Hosting

WordPress blogs

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Wordpress Dedicated Hosting

WordPress blogs

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HooteSuite

Appendix: HooteSuite

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Not a blogging platform but a great tool for Sallie Mae to consider using for social media management


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Tumbler Blog Examples

Appendix: Tumbler Blog Examples

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This micro-blogging platform is not adequate for our requirements


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WordPress Blog Examples

Appendix: WordPress Blog Examples

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Technology Platform Highlights Conclusions

Tridion Community Builder

Information is tough to come by on this Tridion add-on.

Several references indicate that this is a tool to build an intranet community since access to the CMS as a user must be granted.

Does not satisfy requirements

BlogEngine.net IIS Friendly Blog

Our SM servers run Microsoft IIS 7.5

Most blogging platforms run on Linx, php which use My SQL databases. Our servers will not run My SQL without a conversion code plugin. They run MS SQL databases. BlogEngine.net considered to be one of the best in class blogging platforms designed to run with MS SQL.

Adequate but is chosen by companies only to fit a technology limitation. This platform is not a great choice based on features and functionality. It is not optimized for SEO and may require custom code development when other platforms have ready made plugins.

This platform is adequate for blogging but lacks the SEO optimization and access to thousands of plugins of more popular platforms.

Appendix: Other Blog Platform Technologies

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Documents

BLOG TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH - … Blogging Technologies ... Open source self-hosted software. ... The latest versions come with automatic update options