[thelist] whatis.com redesigned into uselessness.

martin burns martin at members.evolt.org
Wed Aug 23 03:41:03 CDT 2000


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At 16:48 21/08/00, Madhu Menon wrote:
>OK. I've got to ask here. Exactly why on earth did they NEED to move to 
>StoryServer? We have some guys inhouse who underwent training on it and I 
>can tell you that it is a *very* labour intensive process to get it up and 
>running.

Is that the original StoryServer, or is it the current Vignette system?
The Vignette suite now does a hell of a lot more than the very
basic (only really works for news sites) content management which
StoryServer did up to a few months ago. It now goes much more
heavily into personalisation (they bundle NetPerceptions, the engine
Amazon uses for recommendations), distributed workflow etc.

I'm currently in the middle of a cms tendering process, and have been
very impressed with the new Vignette. Compare this to the low opinion
I had of it on thelist and on thesite earlier in the year... (although on
a limited budget and free choice of app server, I'm still recommending
Spectra - if anyone has direct experience with it (+ve or -ve), please
drop me a line.

>Exactly what is so complex about the content management requirements for 
>whatis.com? At the end of the day, it revolves around a database of terms 
>and their definitions. Relatively simply DB design. Heck, coding the 
>entire site should be a day's job on most platform/db combinations. (OK, 
>I'm talking about the core programming part). Why deploy expensive 
>technology like Vignette?

You're right - for what they're doing today, they don't need to spend $1m+
on Vignette, but you (rarely) splash out that kind of cash based on your
present needs.

If I knew their forward plans (and assuming I wasn't under NDA), I could
probably tell you why they need Vignette. Who *knows* where they're going -
whether or not that's a good idea is a different question of course.

And in the final analysis, there's *still* a non-zero probability that it's 
been
bought on a 'pissing with the big boys' basis.

Cheers
Martin
________________
Martin Burns, Content Management Consultant
tel: +44 (0)778 068 6418              http://evolt.org/index.cfm?menu=9&uid=32
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