Nothing makes me more proud of the work I do than seeing a client succeed. In this case, I’m particularly proud of the Chronicle-Telegram, a local newspaper which my company contracts with to provide consulting and support for business communications and information technology. They just launched their new web site, which our firm played a significant role in implementing. On the surface, the new site looks like a standard news site.

But the folks at the Chronicle are very forward-thinking people, and they’ve begun to grasp the notion of Web 2.0. So when deciding how to re-architect their site (the old one was all static HTML and required a large daily effort to keep updated) we looked at a number of Web 2.0 software solutions to use as a framework. We wanted a piece of core software that would accomplish several important things for the client:

1. Allow the newsroom to have complete editorial control over all the content on the site, from composition to publishing.

2. Provide for easy transition of content from the client’s in-house news management system to the web site.

3. Allow for anytime, always-on updating of content so that when news breaks, it’s on my client’s web site before anyone else’s.

4. Provide compatibility with existing advertising engagements that my client has sold through its site.

We eventually decided to start with an open-source content management platform and then developed a few custom modules for it to accomplish special, news-delivery-oriented tasks. These included software for handling RSS feeds generated by the content management core in a way that coalesces well with the news delivery format my client prefers, as well as custom-designed software pieces for image display and ‘email this story to a friend’.

Perhaps most significantly, my client has now entered the community-driven world of Web 2.0, using RSS to syndicate their (incredibly high-quality) original content across the web and empower the community that consists of their writers, editors, and readership…. and an empowered community is one that will grow. That’s the magic of 2.0.