Publishing and Reusing Content on a Budget

by Lowell Rapaport

Many small to midsized businesses need to develop content that can be delivered through multiple channels of distribution, yet they just can't afford, nor do they need all the features of, a high-end content management system.

To their dismay, these organizations will also find that many low-end and midrange management systems may not be well suited to mutichannel distribution. Ektron's CMS 300 gives many betwixt-and-between users an affordable product with an underlying XML architecture that can be used to publish content anywhere.

Mason Owen, a U.K.-based real estate agency and consulting firm, wanted to make its Web site more dynamic and useful to potential clients. The firm's original Web site was a simple brochure for the company; ever-changing real estate listings were distributed in print only.

"Our printing bill was British Sterling 250 to British Sterling 300 ($400 to $500) for each property," says Stephen Cowperthwaite, a partner with Mason Owen.

Each property listing includes text, photos and financial data, and the firm was using a proprietary publishing system tied to a single printing company to publish the data. The real estate firm wanted to bring the property listings online, but the publishing system could not be used to create HTML for a Web site.

"It was clear that Mason Owens needed structured data input for property listings," says Steven Houghton-Burnett, director of Infonet Solutions, a Manchester-based integrator hired by the real estate firm. "Tagging content in XML would make it easy to repurpose the property listings in the different electronic and print formats needed."

Infonet selected CMS 300, and the integrator also arranged to host the content management system externally, as the real estate firm didn't have an IT department. With this new approach, Mason Owen saves $70,000 per year, according to Houghton-Burnett. Real estate agents can post the particulars for each property into the content management system themselves without having to go through a webmaster. Since CMS 300 uses Ektron's eWebEditPro+XML authoring/editing tool, the content is ready to be published into a wide variety of formats as it is entered into the system.

"The system is set up to generate PDFs of each property's particulars," says Houghton-Burnett. "This let's Mason Owen choose the least-expensive printing companies and provides a file that can be downloaded off the Web site in addition to the HTML version viewable within a browser."

Cowperthwaite says that publishing property listings online has boosted Mason Owen's profile in the real estate market. "Buyers can research the properties we have available without first having to consult with an agent," he adds. "Long term, we hope to make the Web site more interactive, with buyers posting their property requirements so our agents can actively seek out properties that will meet their needs."

Mason Owen's needs put it in an awkward position vis-a-vis the available content management systems. On the one hand, the company didn't need particularly high-end Web content management. The firm's site is made up of flat, straightforward content. On the other hand, the company needed to reuse content in print and online in order to assure real estate agents and clients of the best coverage possible.

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