Ideal CMS feature sheet


Contents

Community

  • Downloadable and subscribeable community calendar that organizes events in to lectures, parties, meetings, etc.
  • Facebook app that posts latest multimedia to a facebook profile.

Management

  • Supports multiple users
  • Different editing permissions for authors (writers/photogs), editors and admins 
  o contributor (photog/writer): the grunts who produce all that silly content stuff
  o Editor/Media: photo/video editors who manage media like things
  o Editor/Writing: the 'traditional' editors who mange writers
  o Admin: suprusr
  o Subscriber (public): the bum off the street who signs up on the site (possibly managed by facebook?)
  o webmaster: dude who can change the layout of the site, this is your online editor, interactive graphics guys, etc
  o Ad manager: money makers
  • Ability to associate authors to one or many sections, and designate an editor of that section

Workflow

  • WYSIWYG editor 
  o Features: support for NITF and News ML; standards complaint; parses out wonky fonts from the editor
  o Ability to export text and photos as a downloadable folder – perhaps even as indesign xml for easy placement in the print edition
  • AJAX search for author names and tags
  • require excerpts to be written for all articles (at least pop-up with a dialog warning that there is no excerpt and then auto-generate one)
  • Every story has a status attached to it.

Planned: story submitted by editor to the CMS, default state

  • Assigned: story has a reporter assigned to it. perhaps need separate status for media/writing
  • Written/Submitted: author has submitted the finished product to editors for editing
  • Published: live!
  • Special statuses:
  • No Media!: alert that lets editors know that the 'submitted' story doesn't have art attached
  • In Progress!: Lets an editor know that a writer is typing the story live

Content

  • Support for tags and sections
  • Support for separating out types of content in the database (Django, ExpressionEngine)
  • At the least, custom database fields
  • Friendly admin interface for posting, editing and dealing with data (including very old entries). Extra points for being able to specify a story's location on the page from the admin panel (ie, can denote in a field that this story should be top-left-column on the front page or something).
  • OpenCalais support?
  • Supply a list of potentially related stories that can be selected and attached to the story itself.
  • Ability to create templated sidebars
  • Ability to create polls
  • Ability to create blogs for any writer/section – possibly an integration with wordpress 
  o integration may just take the form of sharing a nav bar and theme
  • ability to mark articles/content as 'web exclusive'
  • ability to mark articles as part of a series, and have a series 'front' page
  • Custom section pages for News, Opinion, Sports, Photo, etc.

Articles

  • Text fields - WYSIWYG, easy linking & formatting
  • XML support (NewsML, NITF, InDesign XML?)
  • Able to add "sidebars" and corrections/footnotes
  • Auto-generate related articles
  • Attach pictures 
  o Automatically create different sizes at upload ie: thumbnail, in article, high res
  o Include captions & credits
  o How to specify placement of images?
  o Read IPTC metadata
  • Comments 
  o Spam protected (Askimi?)
  o Moderation: customizable defaults, can also be specified by article (open, closed, must be approved, permissions for registered users, etc.)
  • Ability to mark entries as part of a series (with series front page?)
  • Timestamps to toy with (hours ago, etc.)

Multimedia

  • Video, photo galleries, gmaps, flash, etc., as independent entry 
 o Gets its own metadata and page
 o Each can be related to any article, section - then show up automatically on those pages
  • Can have own multimedia "section" frontpage if desired
  • Able to handle multiple uploads
  • Adaptable for present and future formats
  • Adobe AIR upload client (mimicing FTP) for large uploads?
  • Features: FTP for those who don't want to deal with FTP
  • Multiple file upload – probably based in flash. See mediafire for a good example
  • Ability to associate media assets (like images and video) with "authors," or users within the system
  • Ability to automatically create different sized versions of images as thumbnails/in article/high res
  • Support for IPTC, NITF, NewML, and other semantic standards to allow for ultimate searchablity

Site structure

  • Sections & tags
  • Custom section pages for Sections (News, Opinion, Sports, etc.)
  • Able to change layouts on fronts with different story emphasis
  • Breaking news! (Banners or pages)
  • Tag/topic pages
  • Ad hoc blogs 
 o Able to create new for any writer/section, archive old blogs.
 o Possible use for breaking news/special issue
  • Good search engine a must (ajax sorting goodness?)
  • Cruft-free, SEO URLs 
 o Features: landing page for every point that the URL breaks down (e.g. /news/ is the homepage for the news section but /news/2007/ is a landing page for all news from 2007.
 o Example: /news/2007/09/11/this-is-a-news-story/
  • Archives for browsing by date/issue
  • Space for PDFs of paper (?)
  • Contact forms/lists and "about" pages to fit most papers' needs (easy to customize & update, even for Web idiots)
  • Each section has a contact form to contact the editor of the section
  • List of the top 5 comments in each section that can be curated by the editor
  • Tags and sections are treated similar to wordpress-think. Sections have their own fronts. These are perhaps customizable by editors to emphasize certain content. Tags also have 'fronts' that are auto-generated. eg clicking on the 'News' tag or section will bring you to the news front. Clicking on a 'tomato' tag will bring you to the tomato front. If done right, the system should recognize sub-tags. eg clicking 'tomato' should bring you to the 'vegetable' front.
  • A good search engine is a must


Technical

   * Has a database that is open, accessible, and relatively easy to move (like MySQL or PostgreSQL)
   * Might want to think about geographic capabilities in the database, like PostGIS. MySQL has something similar.

Metrics

   * Copy and paste integration with Google Analytics which selectively filters out admin and editor activity

Geo-location features

  • Way of mapping all of the pickup locations on campus with Google Maps

Ideas down the road

Some "blue-sky" thinking

  • Geo-tag stories for placement on a Google Map (and also future geo-specific mobile delivery?)
  • Mobile version
  • Texting alerts
  • Community | 'Digging' stories 
  o possible algorithm for this: 'digg rank' + page hits + editor ranking - time
  • Interface | Stories have statuses attached to them. 
  o Planned: story submitted by editor to the CMS, default state
  o Assigned: story has a reporter assigned to it. perhaps need separate status for media/writing
  o Written/Submitted: author has submitted the finished product to editors for editing
  o Published: live!
  o Special statuses:
    + No Media!: alert that lets editors know that the 'submitted' story doesn't have art attached
    + In Progress!: Lets an editor know that a writer is typing the story live
  • Template | Bio pages for all authors
  • Template | Ability to create templates for sidebars
  • Community | Ability to subscribe to followup comments by either RSS or email or facebook wall
  • Template | flash video player that can serve up pre-roll, mid-roll ads
  • Misc | OpenCalais support
  • Interface | Ability to specify location for a story on the front page (see: iGoogle)
  • Interface | Ability to specify location for ads in the same way (see: iGoogle)
  • Interface | Require excerpts to be written for all articles
  • Misc | ability to mark articles/content as 'web exclusive'
  • Misc | Adobe AIR upload client (mimicing FTP) for large uploads?
  • Template | Each section has a contact form to contact the editor of the section
  • Template | a ticker that displays the top headlines

Advertising

  • an ability to place and schedule advertisements eg iGoogle, -Joey Baker 9/22/08 11:01 PM
  • the creation of a video player that allows for ads to be served via pre-roll, is embed-able, more?

UI

Physical characteristics of the site design

Frontend UI

  • NewsMixer style comments
  • Facebook Connect login
  • option for google friend connect login

Backend

  • AD MANAGER to place & schedule ads (Google or OpenX)
  • Analytics built in (probably Google)
  • RSS feeds everywhere
  • E-mail list manager, auto generate e-mail editions
  • Custom database fields
  • Plugins & extensions framework
  • Custom editing permissions for a variety of users
  • Easy software updates (auto or nearly auto)

UX

User eXperience deals with how the user actually feels or implements the site.

  • Ability for the community to submit story ideas and then vote on which ones should be implemented

Sure would be nice

High secondary priorities

  • Facebook app / Connect
  • Ability to sell ads facebook-style (online form to create classifieds, or whatever)
  • Community calendar that organizes events in to lectures, parties, meetings, etc. (Downloadable and subscribeabl)
  • Poll creation
  • Weather display
  • Easy template selection, customization
  • Easy Plugin management
  • InDesign XML Export
  • FTP media uploads

Support

  • Automatic, or nearly automatic, software update
  • One-click upgrades

Coding Requirements

  • compatible with Safari 3.0
  • compatible with Firefox 3.0
  • compatible with IE 7.0
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