A web CMS that pushes social media and rewards its citizen journalist contributors has emerged from Nashville-based Bondware Web Solutions.
And after completion of six months' development and some live trialling, the US developer has launched a "home town" site as a testing ground for its more innovative ideas.
Bondware president and chief executive Tim Choate says the ContentEngine product - previously code-named Atom - is for "rebels, thought leaders, businesses, groups, causes or news organisations that have out-grown WordPress and similar solutions".
To show it off, Bondware - whose packaged classic system is used in customised form by GXpress.net - has launched a hometown journalism project it calls The Murfreesboro Voice. The name is a reference to its heavy reliance on 'voices' - or local writers and photographers with diverse perspectives - for content creation, and with whom it splits all revenue 50/50 according to their impact on site traffic.
In development since May, ContentEngine is based on open source web technology, "image-first" and elegantly responsive on mobile, tablet or desktop. Apart from the content marketplace and heavy social media integration, what Choate describes as "WordPress-style pages" can also serve as navigation links to external links or internals, with simplified newsletters, ad management and a community calendar among included features.
Choate envisages uses including as a business marketing website based on native advertising content. "ContentEngine is built for this with easy creation, tight social integration, automated article posting on website and social networks," he says.
An advanced use could be as a content marketplace, where content is sourced and distributed around a niche topic, while it also lends itself to creation of hyper-local or niche-oriented online publications with tools to publish and share content, sell advertising and send out newsletters.
So if you want to dip a toe into media entrepreneurship - the Voice promises humour, poetry and short-form fiction, "as long as it has a local flavour" - details and a free trial are available at www.bondware.com
Pictured: Two presentations of the responsive Murfreesboro Voice site