What is a content management system?

A content management system is a a web based software system used for easier content management for web site administrators or publishers. A content management system is usually deployed in multi user environments with a potentially large amount of contributors or users. Many ecommerce system administration panels can be considered content management systems because one can easily login to the web site back end and edit product and category information on the fly, with no HTML or web site programming experience.

Content management systems are used to manage images, videos and electronic documents, to share computer files, user manuals, operators’ manuals, sales guides and marketing tools, to publish articles, polls, contests and industry information, to create, edit, delete, and store user account profiles and information, to manage and create databases, and more. Content management systems can include contests, boards, blogs, or email newsletters. The idea is to make all information easily accessible and easily modifiable inter-office and on the web.

A web content management system is usually built with databases such as MySQL or MS SQL and scripting languages or tools such as ASP, PHP, JSP (JavaScript), or ColdFusion to interact with the data to parse into a desired visual display online. The data stored in the database are queried by a end user and compiled into HTML pages and transformed using cascading tile sheets