Thoughts on the Future of Content Management

Blogger Julian Wraith recently asked CMS Watch pundits to comment on The Future of Content Management. This is a topic I get asked about a lot, not only by CMS Watch customers but by consultants, friends in the industry, and (yes) vendors. I thought I'd offer some high-level observations here.

First I'd note that content, today, is not what we used to think of as content ten or fifteen years ago. Content used to mean document. Then for a while it also meant a web page, or the text and artifacts destined to make up a web page. Now it means whatever it means. Content can be just about anything. And not surprisingly, it means different things to different people.One thing we can all agree on, I think, is that content, on the whole, is becoming richer, less structured, more diverse, and (as a result) less manageable.

Files tend to be much bigger now than a decade ago, too. This makes the storage vendors giddy, of course.

What does the trend toward richer, less structured content mean for management of content? It depends what your business needs are. I think the only generalization I'd make about the 'M' in CMS is this: What makes an arbitrary blob of bits truly manageable is metadata. Keeping knowledge about a file separate from the file itself is a hugely important concept. A file's metadata becomes its interface to the outside world. It's like a service descriptor. It says "Here's my name, this is how you call me, here's my canonical location, here's my pedigree, ...etc..., this is everything you need to know about me, so don't bother digging around inside my concrete implementation, it's not necessary."

Everything you need to know in order to manage a piece of content is, or should be, in its metadata.

The only possible conclusion, as I see it, is: The future of Content Management is metadata. And yes, that includes metadata about metadata -- something we'll have all too much of, soon enough.I often get asked about the future of content management, so I thought I'd offer some high-level observations here. First I'd note that content, today, is not what we used to think of as content ten or fifteen years ago...