Web/Print Content Management from Celsius Technology

By: E&P Staff Two-year-old Celsius Technology Group has developed Celsius Publisher, a Web-based, hosted platform that creates what it calls a universal content community.

The subscription-based system, with applications customized to meet each client's needs, helps manage all the content a news organization collects and/or distributes, to the Web or print.

"Our product empowers newsrooms and communities to create content without the need to invest in costly development or hosting," Celsius President David Costello said in a statement. "There is 'zero barrier' for entry to this simple system, because technically it is easy to implement and it allows organizations to compete more effectively with Internet-based competitors."

The platform includes three principal components. In Celsius Publisher, a story is a container for one or more elements such as text, audio, video and polls. It also provides greater access for readers - for example, allowing their participation in the story-creation process by adding elements to an existing story, such as uploading photos and videos associated with a particular piece.

Celsius Story is an easy-to-learn, adaptable system for story creation and management that requires only a Web browser. When users log in, they see the "My Stories" page, listing all stories each has created or been assigned. Likewise, when photographers log in, they can instantly review all their assignments. History tracking allows writers, editors and others to follow all changes and manage page layout more efficiently. Staff members can comment throughout the editorial process.

Celsius Pipeline is a platform for sharing stories, photos, audio, video and other content from participating news organizations, content creators, blogs and other content-sharing networks.

"The Celsius platform removes the technical challenges of the traditional information-gathering systems," Karen Rajotte, publisher of The Forecaster Newspapers, said in a statement. "So our staff can focus on our mission and not on technology--gathering and disseminating news in print and on the Web."

Serving southern Maine with four weekly editions covering specific geographic areas, Forecaster's Web site is being powered by Celsius.

Another benefit of Celsius is that organizations can better track both their content and their users' reading histories across multiple sites - a feature attractive to advertisers who want to target specific reader segments.