Packt Publishing announced today the winner of their 2009 Best Open Source Other CMS Award. Using the word "Other" is Packt's way of saying non-PHP content management system. For the second straight year the winner for Best Open Source Other CMS is Plone.

Tony Pietrocola, Bridgeline Software, posted on their blog seven ways to "Avoid These Common Mistakes When Implementing WCM". Two of the tips he gives have been giving me trouble lately.

2. Have the requirements from all stakeholder groups been accounted for? One of the critical issues that sink CMS investments in the organization is missing all necessary input and buy-in.

This week, I spent a lot of time in various discussions on the negatives of Web content management systems (WCM). For all the excitement us CMS enthusiasts have for WCM, there is also associated frustration that threatens to dampen our spirit and kill the mission.

Earlier this week, Ektron Inc. announced the release of Ektron CMS400.NET version 8.0. Version 8.0 builds on Ektron’s social software and enterprise Web content management to allow for the creation of sites that today’s web users expect. Version 8.0 includes the new eMarketing Suite, complete with the analytics, multivariate testing, drag and drop page assembly, ecommerce and enhanced site management tools that marketing teams can use to drive measurable business results.

We lasted nine months. That's right, for nine months we hosted our Drupal site with a shared hosting account. Last January, I knew we were taking a gamble but the monthly cost savings for hosting the site was just too tempting. In this end though, CMS Report was too busy and exceeded the shared hosting provider's CPU usage policy.

MODx Web Development is a new book from Packt which will help users create a powerful, dynamic website by using the individual elements of MODx. Written by Antano Solar John this book is an example-driven tutorial, which will take readers from the installation of MODx through to configuration, customization, and deployment. It will enable them to build a fully-functional, feature-rich website quickly and without any programming language.

Even though I've wanted to focus more on MODx in this blog, I have to say I haven't done a very good job bringing this CMS and content management framework up for discussion. With the release of MODx Evolution 1.0 and the upcoming release of MODx Revolution 2.0 I have no doubt we'll be seeing more headlines for MODx.

Last week, MODx Evolution 1.0.1 was released. This release contains enough security improvements and bug fixes that the MODx developers consider the update a "mandatory upgrade" for any site running previous releases of MODx Evolution/0.9.X.

By now, many of us are excited to see the finalists for this year's Packt Publishing Open Source CMS (Content Management System) Award competition, the annual contest in which dozens of companies compete to be highlighted as the year's finest Content Management System.

Entering its fourth year, this competition has grown nearly five-fold and is widely regarded as the most prestigious award available in the CMS industry. But as successful as the competition has become, it sadly suffers from inherent issues which prevent it from truly presenting today's gamut of CMS choices in a valuable way.