Furthermore, we believe that poor implementations can prove to be catastrophic when originated or maintained by unqualified developers.
The vast majority of websites on the Internet today are powered by popular off-the-shelf content management systems. This includes WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla on the low end and, on the upper tier, enterprise platforms such as Adobe Experience Manager, Ektron, or Sitecore.
These systems are popular because they quickly enable customization, ease of use, security, and more. However, an unintended side effect of these platforms are that undertrained and underskilled developers are using them to rob the Internet of creativity and ingenuity.
Take WordPress for example, which has grown to power almost 27% of the Web. As it has grown, “agencies” and “consultants” have crawled out of the woodwork making promises about how it can solve almost any online technical challenge. Lofty claims have been made, such as “easy-to-implement,” “cutting-edge design,” “enhanced lead generation and user conversion,” all in a “secure and safe environment.”
WordPress websites look like WordPress websites. The smart consumer now knows when a company has actually invested serious resources on a website, as opposed to simply taking a theme off the shelf. No longer do you design an experience and then craft a management solution. Today, you design an experience around a management solution.
Worst of all, the massive number of sites running WordPress today have exposed the Internet to the largest security bubble in the history of the medium as a whole. Without upkeep, WordPress and similar platforms become liabilities, waiting for attacks from automated bots hoping to compromise vulnerable servers. Recent studies suggest up to 70% of WordPress sites are vulnerable. That means, mathematically, that 17.5% of the internet is vulnerable to attack.
We’ve seen this many times: The WordPress client whose site was disabled by a brute force attack on its CMS installation. The non-profit hospital whose Joomla installation was so compromised, they were forced to convert their site into flat HTML files. The Drupal client who was forced into a redesign because their platform version was no longer supported.
The answer is because the community doesn’t know how to work with much else.
Today, website owners have to sift through the muck, trying to figure out if a “web developer” can actually really build anything. Agencies are selling themselves as online experts when they can only put together WordPress, a theme, and a couple of plugins. And when the site is hacked or compromised, they have no idea how to fix it.
WordPress began as a simple blogging platform—even today, the system is still blog-centric. Yet so-called “developers” are using it in ways far beyond what it was initially intended to do. WordPress is now being used for e-commerce and other business scenarios, which is putting personal data and credit card information at risk.
We like to compare the increased reach of WordPress to a financial bubble. And what is the definition of a bubble? “A good or fortunate situation that is isolated from reality or unlikely to last.”
Many companies license closed-source software for significant sums only to then suffer from poor implementation. Agencies that typically are procured for enterprise-grade implementations are large and scaled, oftentimes they assign out their weakest and youngest personnel on these projects. Clients who spend upwards of $250,000 on CMS license fees then are subjected to a junior workforce and a revolving door of agency personnel.
Overall the CMS industry is confusing and complicated. Do you take the risk on the low end of an insecure platform maintained by a community? Or do you spend significant funds on a closed-source system with almost no real customization capabilities? And, what are the qualifications of your implementation partner either way?
A way to ensure honesty, transparency and clarity throughout the CMS journey.
We bring a unique approach to content management and web development projects. It begins with a consultative engagement where we define your project. It proceeds with a well architected and specific set of design & development tasks. And it culminates with a thorough quality assurance, testing and deployment procedure.
All of this, overseen at each stage my professionals, not junior staffers.
Our mission is to mitigate your risk when hiring a CMS implementation partner, and crafting solutions that will stand the test of time for your organization.
We're happy to help!