Posted by ithacaindy on February 16, 2011 at 4:15pm
I repeatedly read that Drupal is the preferred platform for online newspapers. My intention is not to bait an argument, but what specific qualities are in Drupal which better lends it to operating an online news site? I've heard the expandability and community aspects, but what particular advantage does Drupal have which improves online newspaper operation (not design or expansion). I appreciate the feedback, because I am on the fence whether to base my news operations on Drupal or another of the "big 3."
Comments
cck, views, panels ...
Flexibility.
Drupal lets you create new types of structured content with fields, or add fields to existing types, using CCK. The "news story" is not limited to headline, byline, body. It can (and in our case does) include geolocation fields, automatic map generation, managed references to other stories, charts, graphs, photo and multimedia components, and so forth. And keep in mind that a news site is more than news stories. What about promos? Alerts? Your site should manage them for you.
Drupal lets you create lists, grids, feeds, blocks, pages, widgets, etc, to your specs using Views. Solutions to the "I want a block here that shows ..." problem typically take just a few minutes.
Drupal lets you lay out complex pages using Panels. Change your mind? Drag and drop. Big story? Activate the optional "martians landed" component that you prepared in advance. Editors can do this.
Those are the biggest advantages. They give immense power and flexibility to the site manager without requiring an understanding of SQL, PHP, or even HTML.
Other key tools would be Imagecache, which lets you define image specifications so the system can automatically manage resizing/cropping/etc.; Nodequeue, which lets you create and manage lists of items for precise control over what appears in items generated by Views; Feeds, for importing data from various XML and other formats; Pathauto and Nodewords for excellent SEO; Webform, for gathering data from the public; various modules for integrating with external search tools; storage such as Memcache and APC, et cetera.
Everything I have mentioned is OUTSIDE of Drupal core. This is the strength of Drupal: Small, well-planned core, robust API, and a great community of developers who have built a universe of contributed modules. Mobile services? E-commerce? Video handling? All possible with contributed modules.
Open Publish
@ithacaindy: you may really want to explore http://openpublishapp.com/ as one of the key reasons why you shoudl choose Drupal for Newspaper/online media publishing. We're using it in one of our recent News projects, and it has cut down our development/implementation time by 6-8 weeks.
Also, our case study: http://drupal.org/node/629664 may help you get some answers.
Regards,
Rahul Dewan
CEO | http://drupal.org/marketplace/srijan-technologies
http://www.srijan.in/drupalgive | http://twitter.com/srijan
Open Publish
@rehuldewan: I notice you employed a design firm to develop The Open Magazine. This is key. While much of OpenPublishing's notoriety comes from high-profile 'wins', such as the The New Republic and others, the sites were accomplished with the assistance of professional designers. I totally agree with you on the power of OP - I was an early fan and user. Now that the power is made available, equal effort needs to be made on the design front - providing design tools and expertise that are within reach. The lack of a level design playing field is why some turn to other platforms, which despite fundamental power failings, offer mature and affordable design options.