February 23, 2004

"Enterprise" Weblogs

I set up a weblog tool at PSESD about a year and half ago. The installation, which uses MovableType, is pretty standard. I have about a dozen uses (only a few are active users), and five or six weblogs. MovableType is a great tool for a couple of weblogs, but I've found that it becomes troublesome when you try to scale it even up to my modest level.

Here are some of the biggest issues I've noticed:


  • Templates: you can set up site wide templates by creating files that live on the server, but each new weblog needs to pointed to each and every template, making this a bit of a chore.

  • Preferences: prefs are set on a blog-by-blog basis; there is no way to set or change preferences for the entire installation.

  • Users: maintaining a large (~10) group of users can sometimes take more administrative work than should be necessary.

Anyway, I think there is room for an "enterprise-level" weblog tool. So, when I saw a mention of SilkBlogs, I was interested. SilkBlogs claims to be an "Enterprise Blogging solution" (wow...three overused buzzwords in one phrase!). I haven't used it, but their site claims to address at least some of my issues. I think its probably one to watch in this space...