Drupal Just Does.

Take control of your online presence. Right meow.

Fun fact: it’s almost 2014.

Fun fact (x2): your [company’s] online presence is important.

Before I dive into my opinion on why you (and your company and your friend’s company) need to move to Drupal, I want to give some brief details on how our information is accessed.

Gone are the days of desktop computers (well, not “gone gone”).

“NEARLY TWO THIRDS OF CELL PHONE USERS SEARCH THE INTERNET FROM THEIR PHONE.” — PEW INTERNET

This is not pass-out-from-suprise news to many of us in the creative/web fields. We have been lecturing clients on the usability of websites and responsive design for at least a couple of years. Even more than just responsive websites, now we have iOS apps, Android apps, Chrome Extensions, Firefox Plugins.

So, what? Drupal just magically builds all of these things into one? Well…not exactly. Or perhaps I should say, “not by default.” BUT Drupal has the capability of providing services with your content, all in one place.

A WEB CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IS A BUNDLED OR STAND-ALONE APPLICATION TO CREATE, MANAGE, STORE AND DEPLOY CONTENT ON WEB PAGES. WEB CONTENT INCLUDES TEXT AND EMBEDDED GRAPHICS, PHOTOS, VIDEO, AUDIO, AND CODE (E.G., FOR APPLICATIONS) THAT DISPLAYS CONTENT OR INTERACTS WITH THE USER. — WIKIPEDIA

I have been working with content management systems like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, Yii and a few others since 2005. Each one has their own quirks, subtlies, IE-frustration moments.

What You Want

A one-stop shop for content creation, editing, and publishing. All companies, freelance workers, and even personal site builders have limited amounts of time and resources. We need our systems to work with us and get stuff done. Badda bing, badda boom.

Not only should our tools be efficient, they also need to maintain a sense of brand. Doesn’t work too well if your site is Twenty Twelve and your competition has a rad, customized site design.

What You Need

You need a content management framework that is complex enough to suit your business model without large adjustments and flexible enough to suit your brand and styles. This is where Drupal comes in. Here are some quick features that I have used in Drupal (taking less than 4 hours a piece to completely customize):

1. JSON feeds — syndicating content between different sites
2. Flexslider — dig the homepage carousel look? Fine. Let’s make it epic and responsive.
3. PHP Templates — want to have different content styled based on type? Done.
4. User roles — Have several users on your platform? Or perhaps you’re currently paying $400/hour for a simple content fix. Stop! Get grandular with user roles and site access.
5. Completely epic/custom theme — Don’t re-invent the wheel (unless you have time). Start off with a base theme such as Omega or Zen and build yourself something special! [insert warm fuzzy feelings]

I could go for another several hours listing off the benefits that I have received from just two shorts years in using Drupal, but I won’t overload you…yet.

Come for Drupal, stay for the community.

With this flexibility and awesomeness there is a level of complexity. Many of you will find web developers to help (hey! thanks for the support!) and others will look to dive in and learn about the framework. Kudos to you!

Drupal has one of the greatest software communities I have worked with. Dedicated from the start on assisting beginning developers, educating intermediate and engaging the advanced. Drupal.org (home of the framework) has over one MILLION users. Wowzas!

Learn More

• Drupal 7.x
• Drupal 8.x — The up-and-coming 2014 redesign of Drupal. Lots of useful modules built right into core.