Drupal once again tops the Best Open Source PHP CMS category which they won in 2008 as well.  Filling in the other top two spots for Best Open Source PHP were new comer to the list WordPress which started as a blogging platform but has come full circle as a wonderful PHP-based CMS and Joomla who is no stranger to the list.  Drupal walks away with $2000 and the other two will receive $500 each.

In the Most Promising Open Source CMS we have ImpressCMS toping the list, which beats their tie with MiaCMS for the final spot on the list last year.  Pixie takes the runner-up spot as a “small, simple” CMS and Pligg brings up the rear.  Pligg and Pixie are making the list for the first time this year.  ImpressCMS will receive $2000 and the other two will receive $1000 each to aid their efforts.

Two more categories remain for this year’s Open Source CMS Awards from PacktPub.com.  They are Best Overall Open Source CMS and the Hall of Fame award.  Will Drupal again take the coveted Best Overall spot or will a new comer unseat them and force them to retire in the Hall of Fame?  We’ll see Friday.

Plone once again has taken the first place prize as PacktPub’s 2009 Best Other Open Source CMS. The Plone has been around for about 8 years now and for two years running has won first place in the Open Source CMS Awards. Python + Zope system allows non-developers the ease of maintaining and administrating a website and talks to nearly any database. The first place spot carries a $2000 prize with it as well.

Other winners in the Best Other Open Source CMS category are dotCMS in the first runner up place with a prize of $500 and MojoPortal in second place with a $500 prize. Congratulations to this year’s winners in the Best Other Open Source CMS. Other category winners to be announced this week as well so check back for daily announcements through the week.

PacktPub Open Source CMS Awards 2009 Categories

Best Overall Open Source CMS
Most Promising Open Source CMS
Best PHP Open Source CMS
Best Other Open Source CMS
Open Source MVPs

FriendFeed is not much different than Twitter.  Short posts, following people and gathering followers, etc., etc.  So why the huge news across the web about this acquisition.  In short, Facebook happens to be the fastest growing social site ever.

The idea of social networking and microblogging is nothing new.  Twitter, Tumblr, FriendFeed and many others have been around for a few years now.  But when a social powerhouse like Facebook takes you over amazing things can happen.

Will Facebook Pull FriendFeed Out of the Mire?

The question now is what will happen to FriendFeed?  Will it start providing real competition for Twitter?  Will Facebook shut it down?

As of now there are no reported plans to shut down FriendFeed.  According to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch.com in his interview with FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor and Facebook VP Products Chris Cox, “Taylor and Cox say that the Friendfeed product will live on independently, and eventually Friendfeed will be merged into Facebook.”

Some other structural changes will occur within the 12 employee start-up like who everybody reports to,etc.  Aside from that not much will change…or will it?

I decided to do some research into what has happened with FriendFeed since the acquisition and found some interesting information.  According to Alexa, FriendFeed has experienced over 63% growth in traffic over the last 3 months, much of it occurring this month.

Whether Facebook will help put FriendFeed at the top of the microblogging world or not is still to be determined.  But having backing like Facebook can’t hurt.  We’ll all just have to add it to our list of social networking outlets and see how it goes.

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The annual Open Source CMS Awards from PacktPub.com are designed to celebrate excellence in development while also keeping the open source spirit alive. With the downturns in the global economy over the last year open source technology has seen a dramatic rise in support as well as use, particularly in the enterprise level businesses, but small business as well.

The awards are broken down into 5 categories which include:

• Best Overall Open Source CMS
• Most Promising Open Source CMS
• Best PHP Open Source CMS
• Best Other Open Source CMS
• Open Source MVPs

Voting for this year’s Open Source CMS Awards begins September 21st and winners will be announced starting on November 9th.

New Category for the 2009 Open Source Awards

This year’s awards bring us a new category directed at acknowledging previous Overall winners such as Drupal and Joomla.  The Hall of Fame Award will celebrate continued excellence above and beyond the others in the field.

For More Information Visit PacktPub.com

Congratulations to previous winners and good luck to nominees this year. Stay tuned for continued coverage of the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards from PacktPub.com.

I recently read a PDF circulated by Howie Schwartz, Internet Marketing Guru, and came across some fascinating information regarding Google and Bing.  Search engines tend to focus on some key aspects of search to make it faster, more effective, and an overall better experience for users.  Considering this, Howie and his team did some studies comparing current Google, Google Caffeine (Google’s amped up version) and Bing.  The results were staggering.

What do Search Engines Focus On?

As stated before search engines tend to focus attention on certain usability aspects to determine how to proceed with future search engines.  These have almost always been determined by Google but Microsoft and Bing have been attempting to rewrite these.  Let’s see how they measure up.

Search Engines Focus

There are four main areas that search engines tend to focus on listed below:

• Speed – How fast results are returned
• Accuracy -  How accurate are the results compared with search terms
• Relevance – How relevant results are in terms of news, new goings-on, etc.
• Comprehensiveness – Do you get a good amount of accurate, relevant, information or just a smattering of it?

Google, Bing, Yahoo!…Who do I choose?

According to Howie’s results Google originally returned more results in less time than Bing and Google Caffeine returned almost twice as many as Google original in less time.  And Google’s results were much more on target for relevance than Bing on both ends.

Based on this information I decided to dig a little deeper and see who else was researching this topic.  Mashable.com found nearly the same results as Howie did…and the same was found across the web.  I have not bothered with my own tests because I trust the resources I use and saw no point in repeating what has already been proven…just good scientific process.

So Will Microsoft Kill Yahoo! and Make Google Official King?

All of this on top of Microsoft’s recent dealings with Yahoo! have made many an individual skeptical as to where to turn for search.  Some still argue that Bing is better…but much of it relates to image search and honestly how many of us do major image searching?

With Bing’s poor results on search times compared with results returned and their relevancy, it seems almost a given that acquiring Yahoo! will simply kill the only search engine that give Google any real competition.

So Google will remain my search engine of choice and I will continue my SEO efforts accordingly.  It may be the wrong course of action but based on my research if you are doing anything different, your site and your clients sites will suffer greatly in the end.

With WordPress 2.8.1 Release Candidate 1 available now, it’s only a matter of time before the full WordPress 2.8.1 is fully released to the public.

This is good news for those of us hesitant to download the beta or release candidate of the content management system known as WordPress.

Get WordPress 2.8.1 Release Candidate 1 Here

One main issue being worked on the WP 2.8.1 Beta is a fix for themes calling categories in a way that is causing them to fail.  As you can see on my site here, my category call is failing at the moment as well.

Other Changes in WordPress 2.8.1 Beta

• Less memory usage by the dashboard
• Automatic upgrade fix when a failed upgrade occurs (files were being deleted)
• Problems with the Rich Text Editor worked around
• Extra security added

If you are still on WordPress 2.7.x it may be a good idea to wait to upgrade.  If you are already on 2.8 you may be experiencing these problems but be patient or go get the 2.8.1 Beta now.