It sometimes seems that there are as many technology strategies as players. Strategies include:

• Build: Hiring a web design firm to build a one-off custom developed platform was the most common solution. Usually employing widely used scripting languages and toolkits known as “web frameworks,” these sites were sometimes built in conjunction with an in-house team, but more often designed as standalone sites by outside teams.
• Buy: A few went the commercial route and bought a commercial CMS (content management system). GateHouse Media, the current owner of WickedLocal.com, bought the Prospero content management system, and combined it with a commercial web directory/search package and a user-submitted photo gallery system developed and sold by Morris Digital (mdSpotted; see below). However, GateHouse ultimately opted for the open-source Zope framework when rolling out the WickedLocal feature set across its newspapers in eastern Massachusetts (see “Extend Open Source”).
• Embed: Some embedded free or low-cost tools into their existing websites, usually without much integration with their existing CMS, but done in such a way that the look and feel of the site was preserved. Typically, this involved using free or low cost blogging platforms such as Wordpress or Movable Type to create weblogs on their sites. A few went further with the embedding strategy, establishing a higher-level business relationship with Automattic or Movable Type to create multiuser blog functionality that allowed visitors to sign up for their own blog on their site. Perhaps the most prominent example of this is Le Monde, backed by WordPress MU (multi-user) system customized for the Le Monde site.
• New Platform: A number of the news organizations that have been the most successful at converting readers into participants have something in common: they created their own new CMS from the ground up. Much more than a one-off site, several of these companies aimed to create commercial grade software that they could use for their own operations and resell to other news operations.
• Extend Open Source -- GateHouse Media chose the open-source web framework Zope when extending the Wicked Local Plymouth community feature set across its eastern Massachusetts papers – a change from the original platform, which contained community and blog features from a commercial vendor with proprietary source code. GateHouse did, however, keep mdSpotted, the user-driven photo gallery application created by Morris Digital. Choosing Zope doesn’t preclude GateHouse from creating its own proprietary software; while Zope itself is both free and open-source, the Zope Public License (ZPL) does not prohibit commercial use of software developed on top of the Zope framework. Given that frameworks are toolsets and not finished products, this gives users of Zope quite a bit of room to develop commercial products if they wish. Morris Digital Works has taken a similar approach, using open source CMS Drupal as the engine for some of their community sites, while building commercial modules such as mdSpotted that integrate with Drupal and other CMS platforms.