Keynote at WordPress Cafe Helsinki (2013-09-10).

1. Perttu Tolvanen
Web & CMS Expert, Partner
North Patrol Oy, 20131
Best-fit concepts and typical edge cases for WordPress
Overview to the state of WordPress in Finland / September 2013 / WordPress Café Helsinki

2. Agenda
1. What are the most typical web concepts where WordPress fit in very well?
2. What are the most typical edge cases where WordPress seems to be surprisingly
popular?
3. What kind of future does WordPress have in Finland? Are there challengers
coming from behind?
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3. Best-fit concepts
1. ”Content stream sites” from medium sized sites to
even large media sites
– Eg. news sites, article sites, ”web magazines”, content databases
2. Small to medium sized communicational sites with
long lifecycle, eg. sites of non-profit organisations
– Eg. small parties, associations, some small private companies
– Blogs, ”watchdog” sites
3. Small project sites with limited or unknown budget
– Eg. associations, research projects, research groups
– Campaign sites that potentially can have long lifecycles
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Concepts to avoid:
• hierarchial content sites,
• complex multilingual sites,
• demanding campaign sites and other short-
term projects,
• concepts where article publishing is just a
small part of the concept

4. Edge cases
1. Subsites for larger corporations
– Eg. "web magazine“
– Eg. blogs.finnair.com
2. Corporate sites which are very news-oriented
– Usually quite simple group sites, eg. deltamotorgroup.com
3. News sections of big corporate sites
– Eg. Nordea (newsroom.nordea.com)
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5. Challengers
1. Drupal
– Not really a direct competitor, but some digital agencies have implemented
their own ”site project templates” which make it easier to build Drupal sites
with less cost. In theory, WordPress agencies should not have trouble in
selling their approach against this kind of ”Drupal done cheaply” approach...
But the reality is often different from theory.
2. Concrete5
– Promising newcomer that is being used by digital agencies and ad agencies.
Also there is some community around the tool in Finland (concrete5.fi).
Perhaps the ”most fashionable” tool right now.
– Ecosystem can’t compete with WordPress, but flexibility of the tool seems to
be somewhat better. Most suitable for demanding campaign sites and more
complex and interactive sites with limited budget.
3. SilverStripe
– Looked promising couple years ago, but right now not many agencies are
using SilverStripe.
4. ExpressionEngine
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More information (In Finnish): Julkaisujärjestelmät
Suomessa –hakemisto:
http://northpatrol.fi/julkaisujarjestelmat-
suomessa/

6. Summary
• WordPress is an excellent choice for article-driven websites – also for
any ”content stream website”. Probably many media sites would
benefit by moving to WordPress.
• Bigger corporations are also seing WordPress as a ”secondary CMS
choice” surprisingly often. Reasons behind this vary, but in many
cases it does make sense. Especially if the core of the main website is
something other than publishing articles (interactivity, eCommerce,
custom functionalities).
• Most of the strenghts of WordPress are related to it being used in
fairly similar use cases around the world – we should not forget this
and push for other use cases too strongly!
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7. Questions to discuss
• Should WordPress stay in the current position as a default tool for
smaller sites? Or should it start attacking Concrete5, EE, SilverStripe
and Drupal? Is it already trying to attack them? What can we lose in
that development?
• Do you also see large organizations using WordPress as their
secondary CMS choice? Any problems in that usage scenario?
• How has the plugin market changed during the last few years? What
kind of plugins are developed most actively? Where are we heading?
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8. CMS market in Finland (overview slide)
5 000 – 40 000 euros (+tax.) 40k-80k euros 80k-200k 200k+
Note: These are total
project prices (inc. design)
and mainly ”starting prices”
for different systems.
Note: This slide is naturally a simplification – not
always does complexity correlate with cost – but quite
often it does.

9. Contact information
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Perttu Tolvanen
Web & CMS Expert, Partner
North Patrol Oy
+358 50 368 5199
perttu.tolvanen@northpatrol.com
www.northpatrol.com

10. North Patrol
Advisor in buying web projects
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We’ll find you a web project
solution that fits your needs -
not something that’s
convenient for a vendor to
build.
More information:
www.northpatrol.com
Our main focus is at the critical
stages of project planning,
defining requirements and
selecting the best partners.
Additionally we support the
implementation and assess the
results.
North Patrol is your expert in
selecting the best vendors and
technologies for your next web
project.
We are an independent
consulting company without
ties to system vendors, and
can help select the best
implementation plan and
vendor to save you headaches
in the long run.

11. North Patrol Oy11
BUYER´S GUIDE TO WEB
PROJECTS
www.northpatrol.com/blog