As of release 3.0, WordPress is ready to serve small government websites. Communities could save thousands of dollars per year opting for WordPress over other choices for their site's content management system.
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1. WordPress for Government Websites?!
2.
MCP @ MIT
BA UPD @ UMKC
Planning Tech @ UMKC
Geek @ Luminopolis
Jase Wilson
3. Whats this about?
A. Managing small gov. websites
B. Time & money
4. The Problem
Govs. need more web services
Info needs to be managed
Dwindling Budgets
5. Options for maintaining small gov. websites
No CMS*
Hand code all content
Can be useful for very small, simple sites
Impractical @ 10+ pages
*(content management system)
6. Options for maintaining small gov. websites
One-off CMS
AKA roll your own
Custom CRUD (& possibly GUI)
Made in-house or by contractor
Useful in very unique situations
Unwise for most: abundant simpler options
7. Options for maintaining small gov. websites
Language Framework CMS
Similar to one-off
Begins with a broadly distributed skeleton system
(Rails, Django, CakePHP, etc. etc.)
Good choice for enormous entities / complex sites
Impractical for all but largest gov. organizations
8. Options for maintaining small gov. websites
Proprietary / Vendor CMS
Already built, ready to tailor
(Ektron, CivicPlus, etc.)
Purchased or SaaS
Can be extremely costly
Sometimes slow innovation pace
Risk of vendor lock-in
9. Options for maintaining small gov. websites
Open Source CMS
Already built, ready to tailor
(Drupal, WordPress, etc.)
Core is free
Extensible (large communities of contributors)
Increasingly wise choice for small & mid gov. orgs
Of the people, by the people, for the people
10. Drupal
de facto OS CMS for federal government
(whitehouse.gov, SBA, many others)
extremely competent
powerful when used correctly
Open Source CMS choices for government
11. WordPress?
Started as blogging engine
As of latest major release (Feb 23, 2011), Full blown CMS
Open Source CMS choices for government
12. Joomla Textpattern Cushy Silverstripe Frog etc., etc...
etc., etc... etc., etc... etc., etc... etc., etc... etc., etc...
Open Source CMS choices for government
13. Open Source CMS choices for government Sometimes, you just
need a kitten. vs.
14. By the numbers: market share
15. By the numbers: usable hooks* *hook = function endpoint for
integrating extensions WordPress exposed hooks from v 1.2.1 to v
3.1 Drupal 7: 267 WordPress 3.1: 1469
http://adambrown.info/p/wp_hooks http://bit.ly/dIPaBFg Graph
Source: http://adambrown.info/p/wp_hooks
16. By the numbers: installations Graph Source: Jen Lampton,
Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note (July,
2010) http://slidesha.re/917HF0 (excludes WP.com)
17. By the numbers: registered extensions Graph Source: Jen
Lampton, Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note
(July, 2010) http://slidesha.re/917HF0
18. By the numbers: registered themes Graph Source: Jen
Lampton, Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note
(July, 2010) http://slidesha.re/917HF0
19. By the numbers: community size Graph Source: Jen Lampton,
Why WordPress is Better Than Drupal, Developers Take Note (July,
2010) http://slidesha.re/917HF0 # of people in the community
20. Still a kitten?
21. More != Better
Although there are some advantages to scale:
More members = more knowledge & support
More users = easier to hire maintainer
More hooks = greater flexibility (in the long run)
Its true:
22.
Simpler setup & maintenance = less $
Big community = more managers in labor pool
Less moving parts = less things that can go wrong
Intuitive workflow = increased productivity
Platform agnostic = runs anywhere (even IIS!)
Tons of hooks = integration with other services
Perhaps most significant of all...
So, Why WP?
23. So, Why WP?
Its made for communities!!!
- powerful threaded commenting engine in core
- multiuser, multisite out of the box
- user levels, from superadmin to subscriber
- dozens of forks & plugins for forums (bbPress,
buddyPress, p2, etc.)
