XML and Content Management

Chapter 13

XML and Content Management

IN THIS CHAPTER

          What Is Web Content Management?

          What Are the Components of a Content-Management Workflow?

          The Role of XML in Web Content Management

• WebDAV Document Creation

•        How to Design the XML Content Environment

•        The Role of Metadata (RDF and PRISM) in Web Content Management

•        Web Content Syndication with RSS and ICE

          Selecting a Content-Management Solution

In the beginning, when all we had was HTML, the Internet was basically a publishing channel. By the mid 1990s, the Internet had become a viable alternative to print media for authors and publishers. In the late 1990s, as the sophistication of the Internet grew and XML was deployed, a growing number of companies that were not publishers began to use their Web sites to distribute/publish new forms of content. Everything from price lists to contact/telephone lists, home pages, and fax numbers became Internet content. Today, as the volume of content on the Internet continues to grow in size and types of content, it has become clear that online publishing requires a solid Web content-manage-ment solution and dynamic content distribution.

Web content management is generally defined as a combination of clearly defined roles, formal processes, and a supporting system architecture used to produce, collaborate on, maintain, publish, and distribute content on the Web. But what role should XML play in a Web content-management solution? Are other standards critical as well? And how do you select a Web content-management solution? In order to answer these questions, you must understand the core technologies and processes of Web content management. That’s the goal of this chapter.

In this chapter, you’ll learn:

   The definition of content management and the processes within the content-man-agement workflow

   The XML-based components of a Web content-management system

   How to design the XML content environment

   WebDAV single-source, Web-based document creation

   The role of metadata (RDF and PRISM) for Web content management

   Content syndication with RSS and ICE

   Selecting a content-management system