With so many web content management companies adapting their products and their business strategy towards enterprise content management it is becoming increasingly difficult to track developments in the market and the release of new products. The following web sites are just a personal selection of the many hundreds of sites that provide information and advice on content management, and between them provide links to just about every web resource there is on content management topics.

Information Architecture Institute
http://iainstitute.org/
The Information Architecture Institute is the new name for the Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture, a US-based membership organisation with an extensive international membership. The site provides access to a range of resources that facilitate the development of effective web sites and intranets, and also runs an excellent discussion forum for members.

ArnoldIT
http://www.arnoldit.com
Steve Arnold is the King of Search. If you have not heard Steve in action then you have missed out on one of the great raconteurs. Steve specialises in search, and knows the technology inside out, but as with the authors of the books in this issue is a great communicator of knowledge, not just information. If you have missed any of Steve's papers and presentations then you can find them at this site. Steve is generous in making his knowledge widely available. The only caveat that I would offer is that especially when looking at the slides that Steve uses for his presentations it can difficult to work out just what he is talking about, as the slides are very much a prop for his spoken comments. And if you ever need to track down a web search engine for a specific country Steve has them all listed, though you need good eyesight to see the link on the left nav bar.

Boxes and Arrows
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/
This unusual web site is not strictly about content management systems but about information architecture and the design of effective web and intranet sites. It is more like an electronic journal as the site is a collection of peer-reviewed papers but the result is that the quality of the content is very high.

CMPros
http://www.cmprofessionals.org/
CMPros was set up in October 2004 with membership open to anyone with an interest in content management. The driving force behind the organisation has been Bob Doyle, who also runs the CMS Review site. There is an excellent Resources section on the site, and access to this does not require membership of CM Pros.

CMS Review
http://www.cmsreview.com/
The mission of the site is to give the resources needed choose a content management system. Over the last year this site has grown into probably the most comprehensive resource there is on content management systems, including news aggregation software, and software for blogs and wikis. There is a news aggregation feature, an excellent glossary and a list of related sites

Content Manager
http://www.contentmanager.net/
This is without doubt the most comprehensive European-centric site and until early in 2004 was only published in German. A good English language version of the site has recently been launched. The most valuable feature of this site is the very comprehensive list of products and the fact that you can select and compare the features of selected packages in a standardised format.

CMS Watch
http://www.cmswatch.com/
This site is compiled with great skill by Tony Byrne, a leading independent CMS consultant and the author of the CMS Watch report cited above. His site provides access to news stories, feature articles and reports, and also offers a good summary of the main CMS packages currently on the market. Tony also offers an email newsletter service.

Findability
http://findability.org/
This site is the work of Peter Morville, the co-author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. Findability is a concept that Peter has developed to encompass all aspects of content navigation and retrieval. The site provides a valuable set of links to core resources on this subject.

Gilbane Report
http://www.gilbane.com/
The Gilbane Report is a widely read newsletter covering content management technologies and was founded by Frank Gilbane in 1993. Last year much of the previously subscription-only content was opened up to public access. The site contains good lists of other sites, and a wide range of white papers sponsored by industry vendors.

Hartman Communicatie
http://tools.hartman-communicatie.nl/
This site is managed by Eric Hartmann and lists content management vendors in a matrix format that enables the CMS products from these vendors to be evaluated on a comparative basis. Some indication of price is also given. As a source of information on the smaller European CM vendors this site is invaluable.

Intranet Blog
http://www.intranetblog.com/
Toby Ward. President, Prescient Digital Media. Toby Ward is a Canadian intranet consultant who has put considerable effort into developing ROI business cases for intranet implementation and investment. Toby blogs about twice a week, and covers a vast range of subjects, including both technical and governance issues. The average length of each blog is quite substantial, and some are more in the way of articles than blogs. What does come across is Tony's personality and the passion that he has about the need to take intranets seriously as a business information platform. As with all good blogs I find myself disagreeing with some of his views, but respecting his approach and gaining much from rethinking my own approach to the issues he raises. Intranetblog is fairly new, dating from April 2005, and is a most welcome addition to the blog community.

Portals and KM
Portals and KM Blog
For a change I thought I would switch from a web site review to a blog review, given that there are now probably more blogs on intranet/CMS/KM/portal related issues than web sites. Choosing one from the vast range of blogs in this category is always going to be very subjective. What I like about Bill Ives's blog is that he does not try to publish something every day, but only when he has something to say. The scope is broad, and I cannot do better than quote the author "This blog shares ideas and hopes to generate discussion on the use of portals, blogs, and knowledge management to provide value to organizations through practical applications. New trends and technologies are covered with a switch to music and food on the weekends." One of the nice things about bloggers is that they always list other blogs, and Bill has an exceptionally well chosen selection on his blog. For a flavour of his style start at 15 February and a seven part series on blogging.

SearchTools.com
http://www.searchtools.com
This site is managed by Avi Rappaport, a leading consultant on search engine selection and implementation. This is the place to come to track down information on just about any search tool for web sites and intranets. There are over 200 search products profiled on the site, which sets out the main features of each product and provides links to references in the published literature. There is also a section on obsolete products which is more useful than might seem at first sight. Search software has quite a long shelf life. The site also contains excellent sections on how to specify a search product and lists reports, books and articles on search-related topics. As I know to my cost once you set out to provide a comprehensive list the effort involved in maintaining it is colossal, especially if you are running a consulting business at the same time. The inevitable result is that some of the information is not as current as it might be, but such is the value of the listings and the selection and implementation advice I still turn to this site on a regular basis, along with http://www.unstruct.org/ an excellent blog on search and retrieval.

StepTwo
http://www.steptwo.com.au
This site has been established by James Robertson, a leading Australian consultant on content management and knowledge management. James publishes excellent 'white papers' on a wide range of CMS-related topics and the site provides a comprehensive list of CMS vendors. James also publishes a very useful blog at http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/index.html

The Workplace Blog
http://www.theworkplaceblog.com/
This blog is the work of Shiv Singh, Ray Velez and the Enterprise Solutions Team at Avenue A Razorfish I have long admired this web consultancy for their work on large corporate intranets, and this blog is a frequent stopping-off point for me. The blog covers includes news, trends, commentary and events affecting the enterprise workplace and intranets, extranets, portals, web 2.0 and web applications in particular. Roughly speaking the blog is updated weekly, but at each update there are often contributions from a number of members of the team. The blog is very well presented, with good link selection and even shows the subject tags. The archives go back to April 2005. This is a very good example of what a blog should be and should look like. Highlighting this blog also enable me to alert you to the team's Corporate Intranet Best Practices Update which is a well written (and challenging) synthesis of some of the work that the agency has carried out for their clients. From this they have developed an Intranet Maturity Model wiki. To me the model is a bit too focused on technologies, but it is still a valuable addition to the limited post-2000 literature on intranets, and complements the report referred to above

Useit.com
http://www.useit.com/
Usability has now come centre stage, thanks to a small number of pioneers, among them Jakob Nielsen. The Useit.com site takes an almost perverse pleasure in having no graphics. Aside from the corporate sales element of the site (do seriously consider purchasing the 2005 Intranet Design Annual) the really valuable feature of this site is the Alertbox column, written by Nielsen every two weeks and covering a range of web usability issues. His comments are always provocative, and even if you don't agree with all of them just working out why you don't may lead you to design a better intranet. Recent columns have covered Intranet Portals Get Streamlined, Enterprise Usability and The Canonical Intranet Homepage. Just because Useit.com was there at the beginning in 1995 it is easy to forget that a decade it is still there, and still as useful.