Slash
Slash is a information architecture tool from the Portal category.
It is basically an open source release of the code that originally made the
site Slashdot.org. Although it describes
itself as "news and
message board" it can obviously be manipulated to a portal for any type of
content, much the same way a Wiki or related systems can. Obviously given the
popularity of the so called Web 2.0 kind of environment which is populating the
web, many organisations may desire some of this functionality, specfically
where collaboration, such as commenting or forums are neccessary. Slash is
driven by databases of information, thus the information architect using this
type of system uses it as an interface to structure site content in a highly
consistent and automated way. Slash has a highly customizable interface, and
thus can be manipulated to suit the corporate identity of an organization. Due
to it's Open Source nature it both has the advantage of being free and
customizable, these are two attractive qualities that the information architect
can take advantage of in using it has a portal system for an organisation, and
that because searching facilities are included as a part of the product, one
implementation of Slash could be as a Content Management System, or CMS. Again,
this type of tool requires some sophisticated knowledge of webservers, and
scripts, but once this is dealt with, it becomes a flexible and valuable tool
for information architects, in that it offers a consitent way to navigate a
site with labels without havingn to employ the services of a specialist
software engineer.
Slashdot uses the Slash interface:
