DCP Dialogue

Why is Drupal Gaining Popularity?

Is it just me, or is anyone else noticing that more and more people are talking about redesigning their organization’s website using Drupal? DCP is currently working on three website redesign proposals for organizations that know they want to shift to Drupal.

I did some quick internet research and came across several interesting articles that explain 1) who is using Drupal?, 2) why are people moving to Drupal?, and 3) what is Drupal?

Take a look….

Who is Using Drupal?

Click here for a summary of over 70 well-known brands and not-for-profit organizations currently using Drupal. They fall in the following categories: Corporate, Entertainment, News, Academia, Government, Non-Profit.

Some of the impressive names include: Mattel, Zappos, Nokia, ABC, Virgin Radio, Duke University, Rutgers University, InfoWorld, Fast Company, Oxfam International, Amnesty International, and last but not least, Whitehouse.gov.

Click here for Drupal Usage Statistics from Builtwith.com. This article states, “We know of 9,390 websites using this within the top million sites on the internet and an additional extended total of 54,175 websites that are using Drupal." The CMS Distribution of the top web technologies shows that Drupal has 41% of the market share which is by far the most.

Why are People Using Drupal?

In this recent article, Big Drupal: Ten Trends for the Enterprise, Jeff Walpole says,

“Of particular note this year is the adoption of Drupal as the platform of choice for large established organizations in the publishing, media, entertainment and government spaces. To me, the embracing of Drupal by large organizations defines the point at which a technology "has arrived" on the scene and is likely to be taken seriously. It is also a good sign that it will stick around as an important technology with an installed base for a while to come.

Why is this all happening now? It is likely a combination of many things: maturity of the product itself, size of the installed base, growth in community popularity and participation, and lack of affordable alternatives for comparable web 2.0 functionality. I actually prefer to view it more as the maturity of Drupal as a platform through which the Drupal technology community is pushing Drupal forward - potentially straight into enterprise software territory. Here is my "top ten style" list of the technology trends I see fueling this growth."

What is Drupal?

From Drupal’s official website, you’ll learn that, “Drupal is a free, open-source software package that allows an individual, a community of users, or an enterprise to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Hundreds of thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal to power an endless variety of web sites.”

Go to the Drupal site to find out details about the built-in functionality available with Drupal, as well as the thousands of freely available add-on modules.

 

Digital Magazines vs. Online Magazine Microsites vs. Websites

What’s the Best Solution?

There are many options for presenting magazine-style content online. How do you know which approach is ideal for your publication? You can start by answering three simple questions.

1. Is your online magazine an extension of a print publication?
2. Do you want to optimize your online magazine for web viewing?
3. Will you update your online magazine content regularly?

First, what are the different solutions?

If we put online magazines on a continuum with print-centric solutions (PDF/Digital Magazine) on the left to web-centric solutions (full featured website) on the right, magazine microsites would fall in the middle. Below are explanations of each.

PDFs are the simplest online versions of a print magazine. You just post the PDF file of your magazine online and allow people to view it. But it’s not very compelling for readers because:

• Large files are often blocked by firewalls and slow to download
• Readers don’t want to download big files onto their computer
• Reader experience is cumbersome—you have to read pages sequentially
• No interactive content

This option is also limiting for publishers—you can’t add rich media or new content, you can’t track viewer activity, and search engine optimization (SEO) is limited. This solution is quickly becoming obsolete.

Digital Magazines (flip books) are high-quality online replicas of print publications that offer value-added functionality such as interactive media and live links. There’s no file downloading and it’s easier for readers to navigate with a flexible control strip and search functionality. Advertisers like this approach because they can replicate print advertisements online and embed active links to their website. However, people find these solutions hard to read because they’re based on PDFs that were designed for print viewing, not for the Web. Reading requires a lot of zooming in and zooming out. And publishers can’t add new content. Digital magazines are a lively way to view a static print magazine online.

Online Magazine Microsites are HTML-based solutions that take advantage of the design and interactive possibilities of the Web. Based on a print publication or an online-only magazine, it’s a dynamic gathering place where readers peruse your magazine content, view rich media (videos, podcasts, slideshows), and link to your social media sites. Online magazines replicate the magazine-reading experience with a flag treatment, Table of Contents, feature stories, and departments. By mixing custom designed feature articles with various article templates, you don’t have to design every page from scratch. Instead, you upload content as often as you want using a simple Content Management System (CMS). Readers prefer this solution because articles are easy to consume and graphically compelling, content is updated regularly, plus navigation is highly intuitive.

Websites can be used to house online magazine content for organizations’ whose primary business is magazine publishing. For these companies, the main website is an extension of the magazine. For organizations that do more than magazine publishing, articles posted on the primary site get lost unless they’re packaged in a magazine microsite.

What are the ideal scenarios for each solution?
Getting back to the original questions….

1. Is your online magazine an extension of a print publication?
2. Do you want to optimize your online magazine for web viewing?
3. Will you update your online magazine content regularly?

If your online magazine is based on a print publication you can consider all options. But if you’re creating a web-only magazine it makes sense to focus solely on web-centric solutions. Why create a print-centric publication to be viewed online? Why invest in designing each and every page of your publication from scratch when it’s never going to print? There are much more efficient ways to do this. If you plan to update your content regularly, PDF/Digital Magazines are not a viable solution—an online magazine or website is the way to go.

The ideal scenarios for each solution are:

PDF/Digital Magazines
You have a print issue and have already invested in the design of each page. Repurpose it. Don't want to add any extra content; just want to replicate your print piece. Great for magazines with ads—publishers can sell online ad space in addition to print.

Online Magazine Microsites
You want to extend your magazine's brand online and give your magazine lovers a solution optimized for the Web. Regularly post fresh content to keep your audience engaged. Make your magazine a two-way conversation with your audience through article commenting.

Websites
Your company is all about your online magazine. Readers don’t distinguish between your magazine’s brand and your organization’s brand.

Social Media Marketing: Not the Leading Marketing Tool

The title of a recent Junta42 Content Marketing blog entry caught my eye--“Five Reasons Social Media Marketing Comes Last”. When every other blog entry, email subject line, whitepaper, and webinar advocates the high priority of social media marketing, it was refreshing to read something different.

Based on an excerpt from Shama Kabani’s new book, The Zen of Social Media Marketing, this blog entry explains why social media marketing should come last in your marketing plan, yet why it must be there.

The main distinction Shama makes is that social media is a consumer platform, not a marketing platform. With a consumer-owned platform, you can listen and you can participate in the conversation but you don’t control what or how much is said. You still need a marketing platform—a one-way communication vehicle that enables you to deliver your marketing message to the consumers you want to reach.

Since social media is where your customers are, you have to be there. But don’t forget that while social media provides a great place to meet and greet customers, you still need traditional marketing platforms (i.e. advertising, websites, email, e-newsletters, PR, webinars, special events, catalogs, etc.) to communicate your comprehensive marketing message.

The Ultimate Online Magazine Solution

As a marketing director, I’m well aware that you’re not supposed to plug your own company’s products on your blog. So please pardon me for breaking this rule but I really think you should take a look at a powerful new online magazine tool from DCP.

Over the years, we’ve provided our clients with different ways to publish their valuable print content on the Web. We started by offering a basic HTML version of their print publication that we call an ePub™.  Functional and inexpensive, this simple solution does a nice job of converting print content into an HTML-based online publication. But its templated approach doesn’t take full advantage of the design and interactive possibilities of the Web. While it replicates the print content, is doesn’t give clients the ability to extend it.

When the digital “flip-book” products gained popularity, DCP jumped on that trend. The good news with the digital magazine solution is that you preserve the beautiful layout of your print issue. The bad news is that it’s hard for your audience to read digital magazines because the print layout doesn’t translate well to a computer screen. The font is typically too small to read when viewing a full page, causing readers to have to constantly zoom in and out. Navigation is also a bit tedious. Clearly, this is not the most user-friendly solution.

DCP performed extensive research to find the best solution to bring a print publication to life online. WebExtra™, our new product, is a powerful, cost-effective online magazine tool that allows you to extend the reach and effectiveness of your magazine without spending an arm and a leg!

Some of the biggest advantages of WebExtra:

• With an easy-to-use Content Management System (CMS), you can regularly post fresh content — including articles, videos, slideshows, and audiocasts—that keep your audience engaged 24/7/365.
• Make your magazine a two-way conversation with your audience through article commenting and Ask the Expert features.
• Extend the content from your print edition by linking readers to relevant videos, podcasts, slideshows, etc.
• Promote news, events, or whatever you want in real time with WebExtra’s built-in event calendar that is highlighted on the home page.
• The custom designed feature stories look even better online than in print!
• This fully hosted solution presents no burden on your IT department and links seamlessly to your main website.

Take a look at the latest edition of WebExtra produced for UC Hastings College of the Law at magazine.uchastings.edu . Imagine what WebExtra can do for your print content!

Inexpensive Web Video for Hospitals

Hospitals around the country are beginning to make better use of audio and video patient testimonials on their websites and service-line microsites. Granted, as an industry they’ve been slow to the party, but that’s largely because of their deliberate caution related to issues like privacy, Medicaid reimbursements, and other liabilities. All of that seems to be changing now, and you see plenty of examples of audio and video programs on hospital websites, particularly with the large academic medical centers. Here is a nice example from UCLA Medical Center.

For smaller organizations, the high cost of professionally produced video has been constraining. On the other hand, “cheap video” shot by someone’s nephew and posted on YouTube doesn’t necessarily do service to a hospital’s effort to extend its brand and build consumer affinity for its services.

There are, however, relatively inexpensive ways to produce and present high-quality audio and video. I think one of the best examples that may serve as a model for hospitals is the series called Patient Voices done by the New York Times. These are 2 minute patient testimonial audiocasts with 4-5 corresponding photos in a slide show. They are very moving even though their production value is modest. There’s no program introduction, no music, no voice over, no graphics other than the photos, and you can tell the audio edit of each was minimal. It’s just the patient telling his or her story.

For people facing life-altering or life-threatening conditions, hearing from other patients with similar stories is engaging and supportive.

DCP is working on projects like these for hospital (and non-hospital) clients. Call me if you want to know more about it.

Why Should You Create Online Videos?

The YouTube phenomenon is an oft-cited example of the explosion of video on the web. Now, an increasing number of studies reveal the effectiveness of video for creating “stickiness” on websites, for keeping eyeballs on your site longer and prompting them to return more frequently.

The data about the effectiveness of video, when combined with the demographics about broadband penetration (over 90% among “active” Internet users according to a February 2009 report from Neilson Online) makes a powerful case for marketers to integrate video into their web content toolkit.

Why are online videos effective marketing tools? They allow your prospects to see and hear firsthand what makes your organization unique, rather than having to sift through pages of text. Videos offer a personal touch and guarantee that your message is being communicated completely and accurately. There is no better way to share customer testimonials.

Here are some interesting statistics:

• Most users consume video. 80% of Internet users watch video, moving to 88% by 2012. (Ad Age Web Video Report)

• People are spending more time watching videos online. According to a survey by comScore, 73% of U.S. Internet users watched an average of nearly three and a half hours of online video during the month of February 2008, with Americans viewing more than 10 billion videos online. According to the Nielsen Online VideoCensus, the time per viewer spent looking at videos online jumped 49% in May 2009 compared to May 2008.

• Videos drive people to action. Of the people viewing marketing-oriented videos, over half will take some action after viewing a video...including 12% who will buy the product being offered. Typically only .5% to 2% of visitors to a "text only" web site will purchase a product. (Online Publishers Association and Adweek)

• People spend more time watching videos than reading text online. 65% of online surfers will view video advertisements to their completion. Less than 20% read "text only" sites to completion. (Online Publishers Association and Adweek)

• All demographics are watching videos.
Who Watches Online Video
      Men 63%; Women 51%
      Ages 18-29 76%
      Ages 30-49 57%
      Ages 50-64 46%
      Age 65+ 39%

• People share links to videos. 68% of people who watch online videos pass links for these videos onto their friends. (Online Publishers Association and Adweek)

• Video is highest performing advertising unit online. Pre-roll video outperforms all traditional display units on brand lift, brand recall and lift in purchase intent. (Ad Age Web Video Report)

Now, with the cost of video production declining significantly and with the option to host your videos on other websites, web videos are viable for more organizations. DCP is expanding our video web services. Contact us if you’re interested in finding out about our video offerings.

The Digital Magazine Debate

If you’ve ever viewed a digital magazine, I’ll bet you have a strong opinion to contribute to the ongoing digital magazine debate. Some people love the ingenious page-turning software, while some people are offended by the difficulty of reading such small type. Others prefer the basic PDF solution, mainly because it’s practically free. But as we all have more experience with digital magazines, many of us are coming to the realization that what’s ideal for print is not ideal for the Web.

As Publishing Executive E-Media Strategist Eric Shanfelt stated in his recent article, Why Digital Magazines Don’t Have to Suck, “Ultimately we need to come to terms with the fact that Online is not print.”

In this insightful article, Shanfelt reacts to his media executive friend’s proclamation, “Digital magazines suck. They’re not print, and they’re not Web. It seems like a lazy way to get online instead of investing in a really good Web site.” I agree with Shanfelt’s assessment that the ideal digital magazine is easy to read on a computer screen and uses interactivity (i.e. video, audio, animation, etc.) to provide a rich, in-depth experience.

If time and budget were a non-issue, we would all create custom magazine Web sites. But that’s not reality, and that’s why DCP offers digital magazine solutions for every budget. We’re hoping that over time more organizations will decide, like UC Hastings College of the Law recently did, to invest in interactive magazine Web sites. What they’ll create is not just a digital replica of their print publication, but a lively meeting place for their most loyal audience.