Printcasting to build on Drupal platform

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dan Pacheco on July 1, 2008 at 5:11pm

I generally have no "religion" about any technology platform. If I did, I'd still be extolling the virtues of NAPLP graphics (Prodigy) and Wildcat BBS as a local CMS. But happily those technologies died in the '80s as better technologies replaced them.

But back to the future ... I have been impressed with how quickly the Drupal framework has matured, and how the Drupal community has grown. It's particularly strong among newspapers, which are the natural early adopters of Printcasting technology when it's available under an open-source license. We want to make it easy for lots of newspapers and community-focused news providers to use these tools. I get into that some more on PBS Idealab and on my blog.

The fact that we're using Drupal for Printcasting doesn't directly impact anything in the proprietary Bakomatic social media platform that I started and managed until recently, although it will obviously inform some of its future direction -- just like anything else. (The Californian is also playing around with Ning). Everything changes in technology, and if you don't keep an open mind you cease to innovate.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this decision for the Californian is that we will need to pursue a "light integration" strategy with the rest of the Californian's systems -- just like any vendor. We consciously decided to do this so as not to slow down the development paths of either Bakomatic or Printcasting. We thought that was a good tradeoff given the great benefits it would have to larger adoption outside of Bakersfield later.

So with all those caveats aside, we're VERY EXCITED about delving into Drupal. If you or anyone know good Drupal-proficient PHP developers who want to work on something that will have an instant impact on local media, this is a great project for that and we'd love to hear from you. Learn more about our project at http://www.printcasting.com and contact me if you have any questions, ideas or feedback.

▶ Reply to This