They are offering 38 different feeds in Finnish. I don’t want to miss anything, but I also want to avoid duplication where possible. Therefore, I’m wondering if the feeds with the format http://yle.fi/uutiset/rss/uutiset.rss?osasto=[category] all provide selected content that is also included in the feed http://yle.fi/uutiset/rss/uutiset.rss.

If that was the case, I could suffice with just http://yle.fi/uutiset/rss/uutiset.rss.

Would be nice to know

TULE ROHKEASTI MUKAAN…ja ota kaverin lisäksi isi tai äiti, tai molemmat mukaan pallopojiksi!

(Ja jakakaa!)

I’m collecting my jogging stats on this page.

I’m collecting my jogging stats on this page.

It doesn’t feel bad to move away some of the online pie from Google the giant to something smaller. It was about time to re-evaluate RSS tools anyway. Feedly has come a long way. The user experience seems rather similar to Google Reader, so the transition is easy.

The visual presentation – of the Firefox plugin and Android app at least – is quite compelling. Feedly, Flipboard and Pulse are often mentioned together as being some of the most pleasing tools for consumption and sharing of aggregated news and other (social) media streams.

I think I’ll use all three for a while. Too early to tell which will prevail. Maybe all three, for slightly different use cases.

I like the fact that Feedly feels so similar to Google Reader. I like its “save for later” feature, which comes in handy when there’s a video, a podcast or long article I can’t immediately digest, or when my Buffer buffer is filled up to the (free) limit. Flipboard on the other hand seems to sport an even more appealing magazine-like browsing experience. Not sure yet how Pulse compares.

On the consumption side, I’d like to read my (grouped) RSS subscriptions, my Twitter lists and my Facebook home feed (if that’s what it’s called) from within the same application. Separately as well as combined, reverse chronologically.

As to processing, I’d like to be able to capture, annotate, share, save for later. I expect that the three apps will not differ much in this respect since these processing practices are mostly enabled by third-party apps.

This whole forced transition also compells me to have another look at my sources, the way I’ve grouped my RSS feeds and Twitter lists, and the purpose of sharing on Facebook vs. Twitter, (Google+?), my blog, etc.

In other words, this is a healthy exercise.

[UPDATE, April 15: Importing from Google Reader to Feedly went without a glitch. I believe I did it on the web with Firefox.

Importing from Google Reader to Pulse seems a bit more tricky. I did it on the web with Firefox. The resulting view seems more confusing. Will require some curation and getting used to.

Flipboard does not exist on the web. I mean, with a browser you don't get to you Flipboard account as far as I can tell. Not that there's anything wrong with that   So I imported Google Reader from within the Flipboard app on Android.

For now, on a web browser Feedly has my clear preference. It's fast and flexible. Pulse is confusing and Flipboard doesn't exist.

On Android I'm comfortable with both Feedly and Flipboard. The latter is more beautiful, with its paper magazine metaphor.

If they all can save to Pocket. Once a day or so I can view the items in my Pocket account and favorite the ones I'd like to share. IFTTT picks up the favorited items, forwards them to Buffer, which dropfeeds them automagically, with two-hour intervals, onto Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

I just haven't yet figured out how to post onto Google+ as well, except via Google Voice, which I cannot activate on my domain. Or, alternatively, perhaps an IFTTT recipe featuring LinkedIn and Hootsuite might work... but I can't get Hootsuite activated on IFTTT at the moment.]

Unfortunately I cannot be fully transparent and specific about the requirements, but I think you’ll get the gist if you read between the lines.

Joomla! (http://www.joomla.org) and WordPress (http://www.wordpress.org) are two of the most used content management systems (CMS’s) on the Internet today. Both systems can be tailored to enable all the functionalities needed for the project we are talking about. Both are mature, scalable, user-friendly.

Beer, speech and pop

Both are open source projects: “free as in beer and free as in speech.” Both are based on open PHP and MySQL technologies. Anyone can download and install either system on their own or rented (cloud) server.

(Additionally, unlike Joomla!, WordPress has a hosted version at wordpress.com, but that is not a requirement for this project)

WordPress is arguably somewhat more mature as it started in 2003, two years before Joomla! WordPress has a higher install base and is more popular. Google trends would suggest that interest in WordPress is growing (http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=wordpress) while interest in Joomla! seems to have peaked in 2010 (http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=joomla).

On Alexa’s global website traffic ranking, wordpress.com is listed at position number 22, wordpress.org at number 105 and joomla.org at number 432.

Versatility and extensibility

With a flair for generalization and simplification, one might say that WordPress is optimized for blogs and content-driven websites, while Joomla! is arguably more versatile, optimized for large websites as well as non-content driven concepts, e.g. ecommerce, and (large) intranets.

WordPress seems to have more choice in extensions and plug-ins that enable its websites to interact with social media. For example, there are plug-ins that let people visiting a WordPress site leave comments on an article, which are then automatically posted onto their own Facebook timeline, and subsequent comments on the Facebook post are again pulled in onto the WordPress article. Similarly Twitter.

Joomla! can feel to be a bit bulkier perhaps, and tailoring Joomla! to social media integrations and other specific functionalities can in some cases be slightly more time-consuming. But it can be done.

Ease of use

On the content management side, the web-based back-end where editors create and modify pages, articles, images, etc., the ease of use of both systems is quite similar. The way WordPress handles media, i.e. uploading images and other files, searching and finding them from the media library, inserting galleries into articles, seems slightly more intuitive.

In WordPress it is also easy to attach any file, including for example .pdf files, to an article or page.

The latest WordPress versions have “responsive design” built in. This means that the website’s design adapts itself to be optimized for tablet computers and other mobile devices.

There are iPad and Android apps both for WordPress and Joomla! These apps let people create and manage content for the website from a tablet computer in a simplified and fast user interface.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

One area where WordPress performs clearly better is in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is built into the metadata that go with pages, articles, menus, categories, tags, and images. Also, the page URLs are optimized for SEO and can be edited in the article or page edit view. And there are great plug-ins available that make SEO a breeze.

When it comes to SEO, with WordPress, “Google is your friend”, as the saying goes.

As a matter of personal taste, I find the WordPress websites and user interface fresher, more modern and more efficient (intuitive, time-saving) than Joomla!’s. This strengthens my perception that WordPress currently rocks on the cutting edge of web technology as well as usability.

Earned media

Edelman, the global PR consultancy, in recent years has promoted the idea that brands communicate with their audiences through owned, bought and earned media. Owned media include the brand’s own channels, such as web sites and print publications. Bought media means advertising. Earned media involves visibility to the brand through what journalists, bloggers, social media users, customers, authorities, experts and other audiences are saying in the (social) media.

Given the budget restraints of the project at hand, fostering a positive brand perception in social media is going to be very important.

Therefore it is imperative that SEO works well and that the system enables new ways of interacting with social media.

Conclusion

From our point of view, we recommend deploying WordPress for this project. For a relatively small, content-driven website like the one that is required here, WordPress is faster and easier to deploy and most of the important requirements – such as SEO, tablet optimization and social media interaction – are immediately available with the minimum amount of programming.

But we do understand that the customer’s experience with Joomla! is a factor to take into account. Their staff are already used to Joomla! and the IT department is used to supporting it.

At the end of the day, one always needs to look at the customer’s specific situation and preferences. Both solutions will work, and we will be happy to implement either WordPress or Joomla!, ultimately depending on the customer’s preference.

A public-sector prospect of my company and me are running their website on Joomla but are considering WordPress as the CMS for a new project.

Their staff are used to creating and updating content on the Joomla back-end and their IT dept is used to supporting it. Therefore, adopting WordPress would involve some switching cost and a small learning curve.

Are there any compelling reasons why they should take the plunge? Or why they shouldn’t?

Let me disclose that personally I’m more familiar with WordPress and I’m a fan. I love the fact that it’s free as in beer as well as free as in speech. I admire the wordpress.org / wordpress.com business model. I sense that WordPress is developing very rapidly and I admire the energy with which so many developers around the world are pushing the envelope. I kinda believe that WordPress is on such a roll that – if it doesn’t already – it will soon outperform any other CMS out there.

Having said that, I want to keep an open mind and try to pull together an honest comparison of the two. What is it that Joomla has and WordPress doesn’t? And vice versa.

Mahdollinen asiakkaani haluaa nähdä miten helppoa on päivittää webbisivujen sisältöä WordPressilla. (ei välttämättä blogit, vaan sivut)

Etsin siis demo-videoita. Tähän asti kaikki mitä minä olen löytänyt on englanniksi, ja ei edes huippu-hyvää.

Jos tiedät hyvän, vaikuttavan suomenkielinen WordPress-backend-demon, niin otan ystävällisesti vastaan