Managing web content.

• Author: Holland, Michael E.
• Position: Book titled Web Content Management: A Collaborative Approach is reviewed - Book Review

TITLE: Web Content Management: A Collaborative Approach

EDITOR: Russell Nakano

ISBN: 0-201-65782-1

PUBLISHER: Addison-Wesley

PUBLICATION DATE: 2001

LENGTH: 238 pages

PRICE: $39 U.S.; $59.95 Canada

SOURCE: Pearson Education Corporate Sales Division, corpsales@pearsoned.com or 800.428.5331

Few enterprises involved in the distribution of goods or services via the Internet can do so any longer with a free-form management style and loose control mechanisms. The ability to rely on a lone webmaster as asset creator, developer, auditor, and site manager has become a luxury of the past. With increased reliance upon Web sites and increased specialization in the creation and management of Web sites, there is a need for rational, organization-wide management of Web assets and processes.

Russell Nakano and a small but growing group of practitioners have struggled to articulate a new type of organizational management that is applicable to increasing and evolving Internet complexity. These pioneering Web architects have developed a set of concepts, "Web content management," which they define as the principles and practices supporting the development, management, maintenance, and deployment of Web content in an organization. Most successful enterprise-wide Web sites have not only e-commerce segments but also information about a plethora of other corporate activities; all of these assets must work without conflict, failure, or appreciable down time.

Nakano has produced a highly readable, understandable, and practical book about a very complex topic. Web Content Management: A Collaborative Approach systematizes the steps, stages, and principles necessary to manage Web assets for all sizes and complexities of organizations with varying sophistication of Web assets. It is a well-organized explanation of and guide to rational development and deployment of Web assets for a growing and evolving technology in a commercial environment. Web site managers and general organizational managers, Web architects, and Web-asset developers unsure of their place in the volatile and rapidly changing environment of Internet management can use Web content management to identify their place and determine the next step in the evolving structure of an enterprise-wide Web site.

The book is divided into four sections. Part one explains the need for content management and what can befall an organization when Web content is not managed carefully and systematically.

Part two introduces...