From ZDNet:
“WordPress vs. an army of clunky content management systems by ZDNet‘s Larry Dignan — Updated below: There’s a good discussion on the line between journalism and blogging, but it’s also worth noting the technology gulf between media companies and their content minions. In Scott Karp’s overall discussion asking whether blogs can do journalism–I think it’s all the same and chances are techies don’t care anyway–he touches on blogs partially […]”
The article basically goes into detail to say that Word Press (the blogging software I use) or other open-source solutions are way better than some cockamamie in-house “Frankenstein solution” – which would also have the negative affect of being incomprehensible should the developer quit or get fired. Dignan also wants to know why developers insist on re-inventing the wheel in a custom-rolled solution, and can only come up with job security as the reasoning.
My response is, simply put, Word Press is NOT a Content Management System (CMS). It has content, and it manages it, but generally in the IT world when you say CMS you really mean these beastly enterprise-class database-driven media powerhouses that include blogs, static pages, download sections, integration with a store or knowledgebase, Blackberry or e-mail integration, and more. Usually a CMS is the basis for a corporate website or intranet website, and handles all of their information. A blog really serves more of a periodical function, giving daily or weekly updates on a topic or genre.
I see blogs as more of an ad-hoc journalism. It can be credible, and informative, not to mention bleeding-edge current. It can also not be, but that doesn’t distinguish it from the barrage of “real” journalists out there. A blog can be a very specific tool to accomplish a specific purpose; even though some people extend it far beyond it’s reaches with plug-ins. A CMS is a whole artillery kit of tools to use for publishing information and managing content for editorial review and access rights and more. Just my two cents.