Publishers Are Switching to Drupal, Cost Savings Reported

by Sam Dean - Jul. 13, 2009Comments (12)

Open source content management system (CMS) Drupal, is gaining many new types of users, but, as I've noted before, publishers, in particular, should look into it due to the cost savings that it offers over proprietary publishing systems. Part of my conviction on that front comes from the fact that OStatic runs on Drupal, as do publications such as InfoWorld, The Onion, and FastCompany. Now there are some interesting data points on Drupal trickling in from publishers using Drupal, and publishing industry analysts.

The London Paper (no, not The London Times--The London Paper) recently switched to Drupal as part of an overhaul of its web site, and has cut costs by 66 percent, reports Computerworld U.K. The News International publication has an audience of over one million people, and reportedly made the switch to Drupal over a five and a half week period, with integration help from Assanka. London Paper officials told Computerworld U.K. that they have the first newspaper in England to go open source.

Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal, also cites a market research report on Drupal, from Content Here, which evaluated its efficacy and rate of adoption as a platform for newspaper, magazine and radio/television sites. The report notes:

 

"Early adopters include Theonion.com and Mtv.co.uk, both with high traffic volumes that silenced doubts about Drupal's scalability. It seems that every day another recognizable media brand announces their migration onto Drupal; most recently Mother Jones, Recovery.gov, and Virgin Radio."

 

The publishing industry has been especially hard hit by the economic downturn, and it makes sense for a lot of organizations to switch to free, open source CMS platforms. Drupal is not the only choice. OpenSourceCMS remains an excellent way to take the reins of several different free CMS systems. The site allows you to try Drupal, Joomla, WordPress and many other platforms, and you can spend hours functioning as site administrator, watching video tutorials and more. 



al lamb uses OStatic to support Open Source, ask and answer questions and stay informed. What about you?



12 Comments
 

Don't forget The Economist ... currently migrating the old site to Drupal... ;)


http://drupal.org/profile/companies/The%20Economist


0 Votes

I have heard a lot about this. Drupal and joomla is what everyone is turning to for their websites now. Even web design sales are down because of it.


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It is quite amazing to see what has been made possible with Drupal. I remember using it back when version 4.6 was out. Now it is so easy to set up and configure and use out of the box.


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Drupal has some limitations like everything going through the node table, which, for large sites can prove to be a bottleneck. Drupal can take huge spikes in traffic quite well because of smart use of caching.


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Here's another big one for you: Popular Science magazine. Check out http://drupal.org/popular-science


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even though drupal doesn't have as many modules and pre-build templates etc as joomla, it definitely is the most mature and usable CMS


0 Votes

Drupal is gaining a lot of traction in publishing realm because it's the most flexible open-source CMS on the market. Joomla and Wordpress are very good for sites that are primarily used for content management only. However, Drupal's out-of-the-box social networking and content management features are what makes Drupal excel. Another Drupal site to add to the list is http://www.in-fisherman.com . A link to the PDF case study detailing the site's development process can be found here - http://www.mediacurrent.com/blogs/drupal-case-study-mediacurrent-launche... .


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it definitely is the most mature and usable CMS


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Interesting post! Drupal now is commonly used because it is easy platforms and lower cost. Thanks for sharing, Mark.


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0 Votes

Right on The Economist moving to Drupal. Flexible and easy to customize are huge benefits to Drupal over competing CMS, such as Joomla.


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Right on The Economist moving to Drupal. Flexible and easy to customize are huge benefits to Drupal over competing CMS, such as Joomla.


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